Having reflected on the recovery of the past year on New Year’s Eve, the start of the new year seems a good time to revisit and report back on the plans I made a year ago. I have also updated with some plans for the coming year.
Writing:
- Reviews: I completed and submitted both book reviews due in early 2024, and both have been published. I now have a review (over)due that was supposed to be written by September, but I didn’t receive the book until October. This will be completed in the next couple of weeks.
- Conference papers: I had to pull out of the conference on military welfare history as my injured knee made travel too complicated. The paper at the Academic Archers conference was well received, and I am contemplating proposing a follow-up (although not for this year’s on-line conference, sadly). I gave papers at a different conference on military history and, joyously, at the Dorothy L. Sayers Society annual symposium and helped organise a conference on military welfare history. In the coming year, I am already scheduled to give public lectures in February, June and November, and a conference keynote in February. I am also hoping to get to Austria for the Military Welfare History Network conference and to Greece for the International Society for First World War Studies conference, although I am not sure what, if anything, I will be writing for either.
- The big one: The book. Definitely did not get finished this year. In fact, I have made very little progress, with the one chapter that I have worked on significantly currently is a state of chaos that terrifies me. I have done some initial work on other chapters, and do have a clearer sense of what I am trying to do, but I need more space to sit with this work than I have at the moment or am likely to until the summer at least. Work continues.
- And the new project: The article on ambulance drivers never materialised, but in the spring I was approached by a publisher interested in a global history of masculinity and warfare. I have written a proposal and received encouraging feedback. I will be redrafting the proposal in the coming month. Should it be accepted, writing this will be the focus of my forthcoming research leave.
Knitting:
- The cardigan that I started as a lockdown project still doesn’t have button bands, but I have bought the required wool from the supplier. It is next on the knitting project list. This may require another ball of wool from the supplier.
- Three family sweaters were all completed in 2024, although my son’s was finished in a huge rush on 27th December. Only my husband received Christmas wool this year, as he has requested a replacement sweater for one he has worn to death. I have already made a start on this and am making good progress as I still can’t ski due to the knee injury.
- And the new projects: I still haven’t come up with a project for the reclaimed wool from the baby blanket, but I have just offered to make a non-knitting friend a cable sweater. I will be knitting some swatches to test the gauge when I get home, and hoping she likes the colour. If not, I have a large stash of other colours, hopefully something suitable will be found. I also bought myself a copy of Margery Allingham’s Mysterious Knits (coincidentally by the same designer as my friend’s requested sweater) for my birthday and have bought myself a Christmas present of wool for one of the sweater patterns. So it looks to be a year of Kate Davies knits for me this year.
Quilting:
- Autumnal quilt. I have not touched this this year.
- Alice’s Wonderland quilt: Completed, long arm quilted, bound and given to its intended recipient. I am enormously proud of myself and of it.
- Aurora Stars Tricolour quilt: Last year’s new project. I haven’t quite completed the quilt top, but hope to be able to do so in the next couple of months, having just ordered the backing and binding fabrics. However, there are…
- The new projects: Instead of wool, this year I gave my children the materials for their quilts, a full kit for my son, a BOM for my daughter. I have also built up enough of a fabric stash to start compiling the materials needed for my nephew’s quilt top. I will have a significant period to focus on these during my period of recovery from surgery, which will hopefully happen in the spring, but we will have to see how far I get with these.
In the kitchen, the garden and the house:
As ever, the annual events of the kitchen and garden recur.
- Marmalade. Successfully made, in spite of my impairment. The kits for this year’s batch are on order.
- Germination: One of the great achievements of last year was the completion of two big house renovation projects, an update to the family bathroom and the complete redesign of the utility room and office, a project that involved replacing the roof over that part of the house. This has given us not only a lovely space to work in (with, miraculously, enough shelf space for all our books!) but also a large space for potting and germinating. As the greenhouse still doesn’t exist, this will do for now.
- The front bed has been dug over, although too late to plant the intended bulbs. I will be putting in shrubs, including a gift from an old family friend, in the spring, Then I need to work out what to do with all the rocks that I removed as part of the process.
- Plant-based baking: The cinnamon rolls never did happen. I may try again this year.
- And the new project: Having completed the bathroom and office space, the next challenge is redecorating the rest of the house. I am hoping my husband will get around to laying the wood floor in the living room. My goal is to paint the front hallway so that we can finally hang the artwork that is currently occupying a corner of the spare room.
As with last year, these are ambitious goals which will not be completed, but I fully intend that this year shall be different in terms of the pattern and pacing of my work across the different categories. There will be changes this year, some them scary, but all, I think, necessary to enable me to tackle the goals outlined above.
armsandthemedicalman 