Back to Work

Back to work after the Crimbo festivities. Short day made it bearable, though the rest of the work day was taken up with a hospital visit to see the opthalmic doctor.

It wasn't the best of experiences as I had a syringe pushed into my left eye tear ductt and saline squirted though it into my right nostril-ugh!! Upshot of that and various other checks and tests carried out is I need a tear duct readjusting ing in my left eyelid, which apparently requires 10 seconds of surgery. 

If that doesn't solve my issue, then I will need to have the corner of my eyelid tightened at an even later date.

For now though, it's another waiting game as the required surgery is being classed as just routine. Tick Tock. Tick tock.

2024 Review - Part 3

2024 is certainly ending a lot better than it began. I left the department that was giving me so much grief just weeks after giving myself a push and forcing myself to leave my comfort zone. I now have x2 jobs with my employer - one where I can put my writing skills into practice and have time to actual engage with my work rather than a robotic data entry clerk, which is work that literally drives me to despair!! I work that job x3 days a week, whilst spending the other x2 days, in the PCS union office. And so 2024 ends with me finally enjoying my paid work 🙂.

On a personal level, I have never been as happy as I have been these past few months. Both my physical health and mental well-being and making me excited to be alive, which, trust me, is not something I though I would be saying this time last year.

Financially we are doing well (thanks to  hard-earned job). The unburdening of struggling with day to day living expenses is something we have only achieved recently, and it really feels good to appreciate this security.

Finally, and importantly, I am at a place creatively where I can look back at my personal work with pride. 2025 already looks busy, and I hope to find time in the next x12 months to consolidate my creative portfolio and squeeze my way into some new ventures - more of which you'll discover in my upcoming New Year's blog entry...

My New 2025 Hobby

Christmas Mushroom 2024

Cheers to Cal for his latest hand-crafted Crimbo mushroon gift:

And here it is among my growing collection 🙂:

A Christmas Carol Pop Funko review

This is a fantastic set of figures. Scrooge is my favourite of the set by a country mile.

The ghost of Christmas present is perfect too, as is Jacob Marley, which has a fantastic texture to its glow in the dark surface. Tiny Tim was captured well with some amazing detail on the pop. 

The ghost of Chrismas yet to come had an amazing soft feel to its trailing rags. A nice feature, which would have made the figure more striking, but is sadly missing, would have been to have have included the faces if Ignorance and Want peeking through the rags.

The only real disappointing figure for me in the set was the ghost of Christmas past, which was too yellow, the candles were a too blocky and, without its box labling might not have been recognised as A Chrismas Carol Figure. This latter fault is perhaps also present in the Ghost of Christas yet to come. All in all though, it is a great set. Each figure comes with a great snowy London street stand that can interlock to present the collection nicely. And making three of the ghosts glow in the dark is also a cool feature. 

As for my photography, I think I will do better on a second attempt.

Boxing Day Garden

I put our Christmas day leftovers out in the garden in the afternoon to feed any hungry wildlife that happenned to pass by our patio. Whilst the second visitor was no suprise and cleaned up the bulk of the meal, the first visitor got a few roast potatoes down their throat before the food was cleared:
 

A foggy close to Boxing Day:

M R James - Collected Ghost Stories