Daily highlights from 2024

Every 12 months Austin Kleon shares 100 highlights from his year. Meanwhile, at home, my wife started a tradition in which we as a family name our highlight of each day.

This gratitudinal double whammy led me to try and note down one highlight from every day in 2024.

I managed to do 140 days, which is a mere 38% of the year, but it still provided a nice list to reflect on at year's end.

The process of selecting what to share here from the master list was interesting. As I went through the list I got the sense that someone reading my highlights could get the impression that I live a rather idyllic, cultured, exciting life.

And compared to a lot of people, I doubtless do. But that's not the sense I, or we as a family, tend to live with each day.

We moan about how we don't do enough 'activities' at the weekend; how we don't see enough people; how we don't arrange enough playdates; how we don't get enough solo time to pursue interests and maintain friendships.

We complain about having to take the rubbish out; emptying the dishwasher; the endless laundry; where the hell we left our phone; why we're out of coffee again; why we are the only one in this house who does x or y.

We have difficulties at work; issues with school; complications with friends; conflicts with family; run-ins with companies; trouble with neighbours.

We get fed up with where we live; we bicker about what the alternative might be; we compare our parenting experience to that of others; we get anxious about money; we shake our fists at the weather, as if it's a surprise.

On days when a bunch of the above occur in tandem we can get so frustrated we end up in tears.

And yet! The list below reads like that of a blessed life - so I must lead a blessed life? Don't we just contain multitudes.

Anyway, I'm going to try and keep a list this year as well. I recommend it, especially if you feel like life is flying by.

Here's a selection from 2024...

• A post-Christmas day off! Bone Daddy's ramen & glass of wine in Kensington, Babka & coffee in Islington
• Visiting a Chinese supermarket in Kings Cross
• Listening to the Alan Partridge 'Big Beacon' audiobook
• Reading 'Sea State' by Tabitha Lasley in the library and library cafe (I've become very interested in oil and oil rigs, and the lifestyles associated with them)
• Asking my son what he would eat at school breakfast club and him replying "elephant poo" with a big smile
• Unexpected drop-in from some friends and their daughter leading to impromptu lunch
• Getting out early on a Sunday to go to the spa at Waltham Forest Feelgood Centre
• Visiting Phil in Bournemouth and unexpectedly staying out until 2am listening to naughties music at the William IV pub
• My son winning 'Star of the Week' at school. We went to the assembly to see the certificate presented and he was so proud. We had to read the commendation back to him many times a day for several weeks...
• Visiting Pete in Canterbury, pancakes for lunch and a couple of drinks at a pub
• Turkish breakfast on a rainy Mother's Day morning
• 'I'll Be Gone in the Dark' documentary series
• Reading 'Unbroken' over Easter break
• A solo cinema trip to see 'The Zone of Interest' at Bloomsbury Curzon
• Seeing my son 'play' the ukelele at the end of his holiday club week
• Creating a 'wall of love' for his room with newly printed photos of him with friends, family, etc
• Taking him to see Big Ben and (the outside of) Buckingham Palace
• A visit from Darika, who kindly donated us some toys
• Visiting Lincoln for the first time. Saw the famed dodecahedron at the museum and folders full of ghost stories at the library
• Seeing my wife Sarah's relentless hard work on Common Magic lead to well-earned breakthroughs
• Yellowjackets Season 1
• Revel Puck Circus - once in summer, once at Christmas
• Quotes from my child:
  • "No I don't want to have a bath in the toilet."
  • "I hope my son has a good holiday."
  • "You have salty eyes like a troll."
• An (eventual) holiday in Portugal. (The day before we were originally due to fly we realised my son's passport had expired. Hilarity ensued.)
• 'Empire of Pain', the classic holiday read
• Ube Mochi purple pancakes

• Surrey Hills walk: Leatherhead to Dorking, with Darika
• A tour around the 'Beyond the Bassline' exhibition at the British Library
• A rather tragic yet tasty solo visit to Creams dessert bar for a Biscoff waffle
• A visit to Colchester Zoo as a helper with my son's class
• Euro 2024
  • That delicious, summer-flavoured anticipation of the first game of a big tournament. Shame Scotland got hammered
  • Making football-related Reels for work
  • Jude Bellingham's last-minute overhead kick against Slovakia
  • Ollie Watkins' last minute winner for England against Holland
  • A legitimate reason to listen to a football podcast every day
• A rare big family do in Cambridge
• A well-received work project
• Getting a stair-runner fitted a mere eight years after we started discussing it
• My son becoming obsessed with 'real' songs for the first time, as a result of various performances and classes. They included:
  • 'Shotgun' by George Ezra
  • 'Thriller' by Michael Jackson
  • 'Fight Song' by Rachel Platten
  • 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go' by Wham!
• Fixing two toilet flushes all by myself (with help from YouTube)
• Growing basil at home and using it in meals
• Family days out to Hainault Park, God's Own Junkyard, The Diana Memorial Playground, Natural History Museum, Cutty Sark
• My first Seiko watch
• Visiting Wales, solo, and getting the best sleep of the year (decade?). A walk along Porthcawl seafront with Mum, and a great ice cream
• Exploring Bristol Central Library archives. Highlights included a pamphlet issued to police officers in the 1980s, advising what to do in the event of nuclear attack
• A summer barbecue with my cousins and their families
• Our first stay in a Eurocamp, in the south of France
• Fresh tomatoes from a local allotment open day
• Making crispy tofu tacos with proper corn tortillas
• Trip with Darika to Hastings and St Leonard's to see Katie
• Dr Strangelove at the theatre, starring Steve Coogan
• A lovely family visit to Stockholm to see Stina, Bronwen and their kids. We packed in:
  • ABBA museum
  • Vasa museum
  • Stockholm library
  • The zoo - including bears
  • A conker hunt and craft session
  • An exhibition about space
  • The greatest pudding of the year - it was a hazelnut/praline thing that comes in a little case. I forgot to record the name. If anyone knows what I'm talking about please enlighten me?
• Seeing hundreds of cobwebs glistening in the dewy autumn sunshine in the local park

• First trick-or-treat with my son. Sadly he got very upset nobody came to our door because, er, we didn't put a pumpkin out
• Finding a perfectly-fitting pair of trousers in a Stoke Newington charity shop, followed by a salt beef bagel
• Visiting Wakefield for work to get some 200 year-old circus posters digitised
• 'Alone' season 11 - Arctic Circle

• Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael exhibition with Darika at the Royal Academy
• My son seeing the mum of two sisters he's friends with, running up to her and saying "I'm looking for my gels!" (that's 'girls' in east Londonish)
• A date night comprising Toklas for dinner and the brilliant Lehman Trilogy at the theatre
• The audiobook of 'Substance: Inside New Order' by - and read by - bassist Peter Hook. Funny, insightful and scandalous. Followed it with both seasons of BBC podcast 'Transmissions: The Definitive Story of Joy Division & New Order'.
• Buying a second-hand hybrid car relatively trouble-free (a delightfully boring Toyota Auris estate)
• Walking to school with a wee boy holding his Paw Patrol umbrella
• Three Bean Salad podcast - the most reliable source of laughter for me this (and last?) year. Honourable mention to Elis and John

• Winning the work Christmas quiz
• A super-indulgent shared day off for our anniversary... Electric Dreams exhibition at Tate Modern, Spring for lunch, then spa and massages
• Seeing my son's writing really come on thanks partly to one of these LCD writing tablets
• The first nativity in which lines were remembered
• A sober Christmas in Wales (antibiotics, driving duties)...
  • Quality grandparent time
  • Santa bringing stockings to our hotel??!!?
  • Cinderella panto in Cardiff
• ... and a sunny New Year in Majorca
  • Seeing a dolphin show at Marineland
  • Visiting a spa
  • Actual sunshine