another quiet year-end

2025 · 12

Second year of writing these is nearly done, which I only clocked because I scrolled back to see what I'd put this time last year. Not much has changed and I mean that kindly. Same flat, same kettle that takes too long, same view of the bare tree from the kitchen window.

M. taught me a card game over the holidays, or taught it again, since apparently we played it once years ago and I'd forgotten every rule. It's the kind with a scoring system that seems arbitrary until suddenly it isn't. We've played most evenings, two or three hands after dinner while the heating ticks and the windows fog. I lose more than I win, which M. finds very satisfying and doesn't bother to hide.

Meant to do more this year than I did. That's true every year. But the loaves got better, the drawer stopped squeaking, and I read a book I'd been avoiding for ages, so it wasn't a wasted twelve months.

We didn't go anywhere. Stayed in, ate too much, took one cold walk on a grey afternoon when the light was doing that low flat thing it does at this time of year. I keep these mostly for myself, mostly to prove a week happened. Fifty-two of them, give or take, and here we are at the end of another quiet one.