I love writing these end of year posts and I have been doing it for quite a few years: 2024 focused on gratitude, 2023 on my (then new) business venture, 2022 I looked back at 10 milestones, 2021 – the year of the PUPPY – had a lot packed into it and 2020, well, you will remember your own 2020. I wrote two posts in December that year: 2020 #altc – the year forged in fire and 2020 – My year in blog posts, on radio and in drawings .
So what about this year?
I’ve used these close up photos of paintings I’ve been working on this year as a theme for my post, a triptych of a post if you like, to capture the three themes of my year: Joy. Creativity. Focus.
Joy
When I think back to January 2025… I probably wouldn’t have guessed that joy would be one of the themes to come out of my review post at the end of a year filled with unhinged politics, unfettered use of AI and so much upheaval everywhere you look. And still, the joy is undeniable. I’ve done much this year that has been so rewarding, from regular beach trips and travel abroad to getting married again and spending time with family and friends. My year as a pen pal has been prolific and one of the greatest joys of the year was the house filled with postcards and letters from friends all across the world wishing us well on our wedding day.
I’ve accomplished a long-term goal to get back into running, and managed to complete several 10k races over the last 12 months. This in turn brought about a spontaneous decision to fulfil a big dream of mine next year: running the Vancouver Half Marathon. Come May 2026, my husband and I will both be standing on the starting line, hopefully with quite a few friends joining us, too. I’ve been meaning to return to Vancouver ever since my first visit in 2019, and I can’t wait to be in BC once again.
These moments of joy have been so precious, and I am grateful indeed for the friends, family and four-legged creatures that have shared those moments with me (even very early in the morning).
Creativity
As you have no doubt gathered already from my posts this year, I have been having an exceptionally creative year, from analogue adventures in painting, drawing, crafting, embroidery and model building to digital creation, writing, making and designing. I have flexed the skills I gained in art school, and put the DIY tools my dad gave me to good use. I also commandeered a second desk (my so called “weekend desk”) so that I (finally) have a space to be messy again, to leave things to be picked up and continued later. I can’t tell you how good it feels.
To give you a sense of what these projects have been, here is a summary of some of the things I have made this year: a book nook, a flower shop model, a garden shed model, hand embroidered Christmas stockings, acrylic paintings on canvas, watercolour drawings on paper, several dozen digital artworks, an illustrated digital story, started a new book (non-fiction), wrote several short stories, a year long (12 module) postcard based coaching subscription complete with custom made postcards that I sent all across the world, many talks, presentations, workshops, blog posts, podcasts, radio shows, playlists, a vinyl yoga practice, lots of new recipes and even more DIY in the form of newly painted rooms, garden furniture and… well, I think you get the idea.
Suffice to say that I have poured a lot of creative energy into the world, in an effort, to “let creativity eat the darkness“. I have done much to shape the world with my imagination and to populate my world with things that are made by me. Which is why the title of the post refers to the handmade year of 2025.
Focus
The year has been filled with joyful moments and with a lot of time devoted to creativity. It has also been a year of clear focus and much progress. Focus on my business and my professional practice. Now in its third year of being my full-time job, my business has evolved and become more robust and tangible.
Like everyone else I’ve found the uncertainty level in Higher Education and every other sector I work in rather dampening, making it harder to find work and putting everyone under pressure. That said, my efforts in developing my offering and my company of one have paid dividend and building in more focus and flexibility has proven very effective, too.
I’ve had many professional highlights this year, including an unexpected but most welcome award of Honorary Life Membership from ALT, a community which means so much to me. Being part of the ALT Wales Member Group and continuing my work as a Senior CMALT Assessor enables me to keep up with current practice in Learning Technology and Open Education, and connect with this wonderful network.
Also, I am excited to have become a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts this year (and can how add “FRSA” to my list of post-nominal letters on LinkedIn ;)). It’s such a rewarding and interesting community to be part of, and I am looking forward to getting stuck in as a mentor in the mentoring network and start to connect with more fellows in the new year both here in Cardiff and elsewhere. If you are also a member, look me up on the Circle platform 🙂 .
My work continues to be varied, which is a joy for someone like me with many interests and aptitudes. Teaching, training and coaching continues at the University of Oxford, and Sereniti as well as internal cohorts at organisations. Whilst I continue to do some executive coaching with individuals, the bulk of my work has been with leadership teams and groups.
Consultancy projects with Reclaim Hosting, especially the innovative Reclaim Open conference, have been an inspiring part of my year and I deeply appreciate working with such a wonderful team of people.
I’ve also continued work in the digital heritage sector, building on a number of projects I worked on in 2021-2023 as part of the Towards a National Collection and Digital Heritage initiatives. Digital heritage and digital humanities is becoming more of a focus for my consultancy work, and I am looking forward to working more in that space in 2026.
One of the things I reflected and focused on this year was how I work, not only what I do. The values that inform my work have shaped my practice, what I bid for, and what I strive for. So to close this post I wanted to share a the notes I scribbled below, which helped me articulate how I embody the values of my business and why.
Here’s to a more open and blended, ethical and meticulous 2026, continuing to give back in gratitude to the amazing communities I am part of.
