Here’s my year through letters of the alphabet although dreaming up a skirmish with a zebra for the ‘Z’ did prove elusive! As always it’s been a good year, but ‘A” does begin the alphabet with a fall…

Austria certainly changed the year. On a forest mountain path, near Hinterglemm, Anna stepped onto a tree root and broke her ankle in two places. From here mountain rescue retrieved her and we eventually got to York District Hospital five days later, at 4am, to start the proper treatment.  Anna has worked hard, recovered really well and is making great progress. This journey was blogged – click the link.

Books. I’ve read Slow Horses (Fiction – M Herron), A Bit Of A Stretch (Prisoner journal – C Atkins), Abroad In Japan (Living in Japan – C Broad), We Need to talk About Xi (China Politics – M Dillon), Decline & Fall: Diaries 2005 – 2010 (Politics – C Mullin), Hundred Year Marathon (China Politics – M Pillsbury), Why Can’t We All Just Get Along (Social musing – I Dale), Politics On The Edge (Politics – R Stewart) and Becoming (Biography – M Obama.)

Cousins meet up. Anna has been enthusiastic about genealogy and researched both sides of our family in. On my side an illegitimate child and a criminal have come to light but more pleasing but maybe less exotic some cousins have been found. My mother was one of six and the youngest. Anna found two cousins from my Uncle Jack who I had known albeit I think I last saw and spoke to them fifty years ago. From my Uncle Bert, a man I have no recollection of having met (and if he met me then I was a baby/toddler) came Bernice. Our meet ups have been nostalgic, educational and informative. Here’s to more relatives!

Departed. This year has been light on deaths but I recollect a call to a friend (Lyndon) in London, when beside the road on my bike leaving Mildura in Victoria, Australia at 5am, to learn the chap who introduced me to publishing album reviews had died. His website and podcast were The Americana Music Show. Calvin was 58 and lived in North Carolina. The other news came via a Facebook post. Duncan Warwick, the owner, editor and main contributor at Country Music People also succumbed to cancer after a very short illness. This is the magazine I write for. He was 63 years old. I knew he had health challenges but didn’t anticipate this.

Expedition. I loved another long bike ride from Sydney to Canberra and then onto Adelaide. This was through the Australia I liked: working folks, big distances, big skies, great campsites and unbelievable memories.  My February and March 1,100 miles are much covered elsewhere on this website. Click the link there are several blog from beginning to end.

Flight. A memorable visit was to the Duxford Air Museum. Apart from many exhibits of aircraft from bi-planes, military vehicles to Concorde there was a Spitfire and Hurricane taking off and landing on the runway. The vastness and breadth of the exhibits was engrossing. Having driven past it so many times on the M11 it was about time we popped in. Fabulous.

Gigs. There were plenty and even a couple in the USA. The list included Molly Tuttle, Tommy Emmanuel, The Average White Band, Julie Roberts (in Nashville), Lionel Richie (In Memphis), Kiki Dee, Guy Davis, Blackberry Smoke, Crowded House, Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit.  Which was best? I enjoyed them all bar The Pretenders but Nathanial Rateliff and the Night Sweats bordered on astonishing.

Holidays. As retired folk then this is always on our mind and you’ll see the 2024 ones listed here. 2025 has already got Texas and France booked. France will be in the Morgan via the ferry, thanks to one of P&O’s promotions.

Isabella Isla. Our granddaughter continued to delight and she clocked up 12 months on Planet Earth in early December. A beautiful child with a lovely temperament being brilliantly brought up by her hard working parents. Her smile can melt away a number of problems although as she now becomes mobile she’s generating a few! Next year will be another interesting year.

Journey. Cycling keeps me fit, lets me see the world and provides great pleasure. Inevitably I get a number of injuries to keep the local physios busy; the main worry I always have is whether I can get back on my bike asap! Since 1994 I’ve cycled over 103,000 miles. In 2024 it was 4,200 miles.

Kangaroos. On February 23^rd I truly lived the dream. It was an 84 miles ride between Temora and Narrandera in NSW, Australia and it was all through flat farm land with nothing to see. I pedalled for 8 hours listening to podcasts or music wandering what the town ahead offered? As I’m deep in my own world having not seen a car or person for what seemed like hours I spied in my peripheral vision two kangaroos bounding past me silently in a parallel field. (They can move at speed!) After they got past me they crossed the road and disappeared into a wood. That’s why I do it.

Last Guide Tour. I enjoyed my time as a tour guide. It got the adrenalin flowing and I’ve seen much of Yorkshire, Northumberland and The Cotswolds. Most of the guests were interesting and fun to be with. The company I worked for veered between supportive and kind to disorganised and deceptive. This is why I ended the work, however, I learned a lot and have some great memories.

Madeira. We were there for a few nights in April. What a lovely island. I’d thought it may be very similar to the Canary Islands but it was quite different with more to see. A super break. Highly recommended.

Narrandera. This small town in New South Wales was a stopover  as I headed from Sydney to Adelaide. With the use of the Talksport App I was able to listen to Leeds United vs Leicester City as I cycled the next morning. I listened to live commentary of an evening match. We won this table top clash but from here our season drifted into disappointment. If there was one addiction I could kick then supporting this damn team would be the one!

Peeved. So many of these entries are significant events but one thing that stuck with me from the year was a testy conversation with a bar owner in Rome. With Neil and Paul I entered a bar close to our accommodation and ordered drinks. The barmaid who took the order didn’t pour our drinks but, behind the bar, washed glasses, moved things around and then disappeared! After some time I got frustrated and suggested we leave. So we ambled down a narrow street home when a short woman appeared asking why we’d left the bar after ordering the drinks? Here was a small woman facing up to three men in the dark; it seemed unusually brave. We told her clearly about the lousy service and she countered that it was being sorted but in an adjacent room! I was impressed by her ‘front’ if not their service and so we wandered back to have a drink.

Older. As I clocked up 69 years in March I was now older than both my father and paternal grandfather when they died. It seemed profound. Let’s hope I can stretch the gap!

Qatar Airways. The bastards stopped me boarding a flight to Doha, and then onto Sydney. The reason was the condition of my passport. Anna had washed it in Queensland but despite being a little weary it’d since got me in and out of New Zealand, through Australia and in and out of Spain and Portugal since it’s ‘wash’. To find that you’re bounced at Check In was devastating. I had to reschedule and rebook at considerable cost.

Records. I never threw away my vinyl records when from the 1980s they went out of fashion. Viva the CD! However, they’re back and riffling through racks in second hand stores is a joy whether in Yorkshire, Australia or the USA. This year I acquired a further 47 discs. I think I will do a blog on this next year.

Sightseeing. A trip in October to Rome with Paul and Neil was to see the Vatican, Colosseum, Pantheon, Tiber etc. As very old friends we’d started meeting up in London for a meal and then progressed to a few nights in Malaga. This year it was Rome. See the blog on the website – click the link.

Tennessee – In late May Anna and I flew to Nashville. Here we saw the sights and heard a little music before driving to Memphis to do the same. I was last here in 2015. Later we flew out to Georgia to see my niece and family before driving back to Nashville via the Smoky Mountains. It was good to get my regular dose of America. This is written up elsewhere on the website – click this link.

Victoria. Amongst my annual highlights was to ride a bike in Savannah, Georgia and then back in Yorkshire later in the year with my niece. The first time. The USA ride was on the flat at pace on a titanium framed bike her husband, Ben, provided. The UK trip was around our house. Such a memory. Oh yes, she’s a lot better than me!

Writing. My monthly album reviews keep me sharp and working to deadlines. I write at least three reviews a month. Most of the artists I’ve, frankly, never heard of before which means lots of research to knock out c350 words per record. All this is for Country Music People. It’s part of my life.

X Factor. A surprising but complete delight was a visit to Leeds Playhouse to see Opera North’s My Fair Lady. Lerner and Loewe’s adaptation of a George Bernard Shaw play hit Broadway in 1956 and was one of the golden age of musicals. This cast did a wonderful job and re-ignited my enthusiasm for live theatre.

Bring on 2025.