2012 Review

Well the end of 2012 is almost nigh.  It's usually nice to look back over some of the highlights of the year and ponder what there is to look forward to in the coming year.

I'm going to go through a few of my highlights of the year and then review my New Year's Resolutions I set myself in January.  I'll do another blog in the first week of January to do a bit of a 2013 preview.

A personal highlight of mine was finally running the London Marathon in April.  You can read about that in more detail by checking out the post-run blog post.  It had been an ambition of mine for over 20 years and the feeling of achievement as I crossed the line was incredible.

Mile 25

In May, we flew out to Krakow for the wedding of some friends of ours.  The entire day was wonderful and we had a great time.  I'd never been to Poland before but had an amazing time.  We'd managed to rent an apartment right on the Old Town Square and saw so much of the city in just a week.  I also did a day trip to Auschwitz which was an incredible but very sobering experience.  If you're looking for a city break holiday, I'd definitely recommend Krakow.

Saint Mary's in Krakow

I managed to see some incredible gigs in 2012 and picking the best isn't easy.  One of many highlights was the Watch The Throne tour in Manchester over the summer.  To see two of the world's biggest music stars in Jay-Z and Kanye West together on stage for over two and a half hours was incredible!  Watching Pulp play a home town arena show to over 12,000 fans was also pretty special and a great way to round off the year!

Jarvis on stage

The end of the 2011/12 football season was also something to celebrate (for once).  I was at Hillsborough to watch Sheffield Wednesday beat Wycombe to confirm promotion back to the Championship, ultimately at the expense of city rivals United.  Whilst the current season is a bit unpredictable (to be diplomatic), the wild celebrations at the end of the season was incredible.

Some people are on the pitch...

It wouldn't be right to review 2012 without mentioning the Olympic and Paralympic Games and I was incredibly fortunate to get tickets to see events at both.  I took my dad to see Olympic football at Old Trafford, my wife and daughter to see tennis at Wimbledon as well as taking in Handball at the Copperbox and Volleyball at Earl's Court.  It was incredible to see the wave of support our athletes had.  Whilst the summer gave us a lot of memorable moments, I personally won't forget the drive back from Legoland to Sheffield, to get home just in time to see Jessica Ennis in her final event.  Watching her cross the line and win gold was my moment of the Games.

Inside the Copperbox

Olympic Stadium for the Paralympics

Watching the Olympic torch go past the end of our road (and the incredible number of people that turned out to see it) really got me hooked on the Olympic spirit, and getting to hold one of the torches later that summer was an amazing feeling.

Obviously there were a few other newsworthy events in 2012 such as the Diamond Jubilee celebrations (I'll never say no to an extra day of work, thank you Ma'am), but one of the most iconic moments for me was Felix Baumgartner's freefall from space.  I told my wife it was our generation's Moon Landing, and while that might be a bit of hyperbole, I'll remember my daughter sat on my knee on the landing watching it with me on my laptop.

And so onto a review of my 2012 Resolutions...  I posted a half-year review (in that link) but it's worth doing a final summary to see how well this year went:


1. Run the London Marathon

A pretty easy one to tick off - 5:30:41! 

2. Raise at least £1000 for charity

Yes.  People were incredibly generous with their donations and I managed to raise over £1500 this year which I'm very proud of.  Thanks again to everyone who donated - it was very generous of you.

3. Get a photograph published or sold

I'm counting this one as a success.  I mentioned in the half year review that I'd done some promo shots for a great Wakefield band call Skint & Demoralised and I followed that up with the cover shot for their single "When Saturday Comes".  You can listen to and download that song here (as well as seeing the 

4. Carry on training to run the Sheffield Half Marathon 2013

I eased off the running in August after a 10k race as I was starting to feel a bit of pain.  I did however switch to an exercise bike to keep fit (and managed to lose over 30lbs in the process).  I start running again this week and I'm all ready for the Sheffield Half Marathon in May! 

5. See at least 12 gigs

I think I ticked 13 off in the end which is quite a good effort.  Obviously I've mentioned some of the highlights above, but also seeing Ladyhawke at The Leadmill in Sheffield was incredible.  Here's to a few more in 2013

6. Read at least 10 books

I think I said at the time this was a pitiful number to aim for, but at least I managed it.  If I can finish off my current book in the next few days, I'll have a clear 11 to my name for this year.  Must try harder next year!

7. Continue my blog after the marathon

This was a tricky one.  After all the effort of blogging on marathon training, I felt at a bit of a loss for what to write about.  I dabbled a bit over the summer but I feel like I've finally got back into a bit of a groove towards the end of this year.  I've also been really lucky to be able to write a monthly blog for Diabetes UK which I'm really looking forward to continuing next year

8. Support the community via sponsorship/donations etc

I'm chalking this down a success as well, though just barely.  I sponsored a mini festival a friend of mine staged for charity earlier this year.  The amount of work and effort she put in to making the day a success was incredible and sponsoring the event to ensure it could go ahead was a real privilege.

9. Expand the smaller areas of my company

This is my first failure, partially through lack of effort and partially through lack of time.  I realised that diversifying from my main business can be good, but the amount of effort required compared to the return doesn't really make it viable.  I'm having a rethink and a re-plan for next year so we'll see what comes of it...

10. Make some friends

Another tricky one.  I've definitely built up some excellent relationships over 2012 - no doubt about it.  I think what's proved trickier is to make those mainfest themselves in a non-digital environment.  I do feel lucky to count some of my Twitter acquaintances as friends but should possibly try harder to turn some of those into "real life" friendships.

So there we go - 2012 in a nutshell.  A fairly large nutshell, but nevertheless.  If you made it this far, then thanks a lot.  I hope you've had a look back at your 2012 and remembered some of the good times you've had.

I'm still pondering what 2013 might hold but I'll be back again in the first week of January to talk about that.  In the mean time, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a Happy New Year

Speak soon

Andy x

Tika Taka Tock

I was at Hillsborough on Saturday to watch Wednesday take on Leicester.  We had a vague stab at it for the first 40 minutes or so (and again for 5 or 10 minutes in the second half) but I think you'd have to be moderately deluded to say that we deserved anything from the game.

Before I go on, there's a couple of points worth making.  Firstly, I don't usually blog about football as I don't like to live with an uneasy feeling that some of the more..."enthusiastic" (crack pot) fans will forgo all sense of social norms in an attempt to vilify me for having a different view to theirs.  I also tend not to blog about football because it's only a game.  I've mentioned before that for the time I'm in the stadium I'm as elated/frustrated (delete as applicable) as the next fan (though I'd like to think I'm not so bonkers as some).  But by the time I get home and explain to my wife and daughter that, no, we didn't win, I'm over it.  Wednesday might be in my blood, but it's not the be all and end all of my life.

So to Saturday.  I'd said to my Dad (who was spared the performance by a prior engagement this week) that I'd take a point before kick off (something I'm saying more and more).  Having thrown two new loan signings into the team I was hoping for a bit of a fresh look to the side.

I think that for most of the first half, we were "not terrible".  But I think we looked scared of passing the ball once we advanced beyond the centre circle.  Having switched to a 4-4-2 playing with actual strikers and actual wingers, I was hoping we'd get the ball out wide and put crosses in for strikers.  But we didn't.  We passed the ball across the defence and let the two central midfielders have a touch every now and then.  Going in one down at half time was a blow, but not unexpected.  Apart from a brief period in the second half, we didn't look at the races - disjointed rather than rubbish.

So what can you do to change things?  I'm not entirely sure, and it's certainly not my job to figure it out, but a few things seem obvious:

1.   Use wide players properly.  Get the ball to the wingers and tell the strikers to get in the box.  It might not be Total Football, but it's using what we've got effectively

2.   Play in position.  Seeing strikers drop back to basically stand next to midfielders seems, to me at least, to be Not A  Very Good Idea.  Bothroyd was guilty of it a lot on Saturday

3.   Change things around a bit.  Loan signings coming in is good for competition but signing another when we already have 4 seems odd to me.  I don't take training sessions every day so I don't know how the players perform but I'm not sure blindly persisting with the same players that aren't scoring goals is a perfect solution.

4.   Make a bit of effort.  An elderly lady who'd been outside collecting for St Luke's Hospice ended up sitting next to me on Saturday.  She admitted to being a Spurs fan brought up on Bill Nicholson's team in the 60s, but, living in Sheffield she followed both clubs.  She remarked at one point that "they seem to be waiting for it [the ball] to come to them rather than go and get it".  And she was right.  Often you'd see a ball played into feet but a Leicester player would nip in front of our waiting player and intercept

5.   Keep the ball.  Admittedly we do this pretty well when we're not being pressurised.  I've no idea if there are stats to back this up, but I suspect our centre halves had as much of the ball as our centre midfielders at the weekend.  I'm not suggesting we try and imitate Barcelona but keeping hold of the ball in the final third must surely improve our chances of getting a goal or two (see also Point 2 above)

6.   Relax.  This is for fans more than anyone.  It is only a game, and whilst other promoted sides like Charlton and Huddersfield are acquitting themselves a lot more than we are, ask yourself if it really matters that much to you that you're prepared to wage a war from the comfort of our laptop about it.  It's pretty obvious that the team aren't doing as well as we'd all like (and we'd all hoped we would) but mercilessly laying into every player for 90 minutes isn't exactly a constructive way of supporting your side.  You may not be a big fan of Jay Bothroyd, or think Dave Jones has lost his marbles (and you're entirely within your rights to think that), but surely you support the shirt more than you "can't stand" certain individuals...

Watford tomorrow night will be tough and whilst I might be frustrated to see the same XI again (seriously, Rodri can't get a start anymore??), I'll be utterly delighted if Bothroyd scores a winner - I genuinely don't think I could say the same for everyone.  I read an article recently about Arsenal fans wanting "their" Arsenal back.  If you're the kind of fan that thinks that, then think about what that really means as a Wednesdayite....

As long as you're happy I suppose that's all that matters.  Up the Owls.

Andy

The day today

Apologies I've been AWOL for a while.  I'm hopefully returning with some sense of regularity but you never know do you?

My last post was about the anger and stupidity you experience at football, and on reflection, you tend to experience that in all other aspects of life as well.  Hopefully this post will try and be a bit more positive instead.

You may remember from a while back how I'd embarked on an attempt to shift the weight I'd managed to insulate myself over summer.  I'm pleased to report that it's going remarkably well and I've lost nearly 21lbs so far.  I'm down to 194.4lbs (against a target of 187lbs by December 14th) so I'm confident I'll get there with time to spare.  As I'd sworn off takeaway of any description until Christmas (much to my wife's dismay), I've relented slightly and agreed to shell out for a pizza if I can get to 185lbs.  Fingers crossed!

A few other things have been happening in the world which I'll mention whilst resisting the urge to pass comment or judgement.

Racism has reared its ugly head in the world of football, almost to the point where the media would have you believe people are using racial slurs as flippantly as Mark, Jeremy and Super Hans trying to section each other.  Now I'm fairly sure this isn't the case but I suppose enough "high profile"incidents could convince you otherwise.  Whilst all of civilised society is rightly disgusted by such behaviour, a few professional footballers decided that throwing their teddy (or t-shirts) out of the pram was the best way to tackle such behaviour.  And not by getting off their arses and doing something.  Messrs Anton and Rio Ferdinand are now being referred to, somewhat ominously, as the Ferdinand Family, suggesting they're actually part of an underground football mafia.  Regardless, the quicker people become educated and stop being racist the better, I'm sure we all agree.

The United States will elect their next President next Tuesday with Hurricane Sandy affecting some key states in the East.  Without wishing to reveal too much about my political leanings, I continue to be surprised that this race is pretty much a dead heat between a man who wants to expand healthcare coverage for millions of people, and someone who thinks windows on aeroplanes should open.

Whilst Hallowe'en is upon us this week, I've firmly got my sights set on Christmas now.  I appreciate and understand it's far too early to talk about it, but I've not had a holiday since May and the prospect of a fortnight off is enough to make me giddier than most kids.  I shall endeavour not to harp on about it too much until December as I'm personally of the belief that Christmas talk starting before late November is a form of insanity.

From a blog perspective, we're getting to the time of year where I run down my Top 20 tracks of 2012 so expect to see a blog or two about music before the end of the year.  I'll also be writing my Review of 2012 and my 2013 preview which I'm sure you're all dying to read.  And on a personal note, I'm now writing a monthly blog for DiabetesUK so if you're interested you can follow that on here or by visiting their website (blogs.diabetes.org.uk).

I think this has been a bit of a random stream of consciousness but hopefully I'll be back into the swing of it now.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Take care

Andy

Wednesday, bloody Wednesday

Apologies to regular readers for finally succumbing to writing about football.  In my defence, we had a good year before it got to this.  Apologies too for invoking Partridge with the title.

I guess the audience for this blog is a bit niche in that I'll end up writing whilst assuming you know something about football and/or Sheffield Wednesday.  (Disclaimer - going to Hillsborough does not automatically qualify you to know something about football as we shall see below).

I contemplated whether I should write this whilst trudging back up the hill to the car after last night's game against Huddersfield which we comfortably managed to lose 3-1.   We weren't our best last night and despite making a few chances and missing them) up front, our defence made them look like Barcelona.

As a football fan, I think I'm quite lucky in that my entire existence doesn't revolve around Sheffield Wednesday Football Club.  I live and die with each kick during the game, but the result washes over me an hour or so after the match.  It's only a game right?

Some people are a lot more fanatical than I am and whilst I respect their choice to be that way, I will make a point of not being tarred with the mad brush to a certain extent.  Most of my football related conversations take place on Twitter, where a certain proportion of our fanbase believe that being a Wednesday fan means we're all mates.  This is definitely not the case.

After last night's game (our 6th of 46 this season) the same old tired tribe took to their phones to start bashing the team and the manager, floating all manner of hysterical observations.  On the surface, it's easy to see why.  Football is an emotive thing.  There's a tribalism in supporting your team and wanting to beat whoever's in front of you.

It's easy to lambast the manager for "changing a winning team" (Wednesday had lost two on the trot before last night) or to blame the keeper (for conceding one penalty and the rebound from another that he'd saved).  It's easy to be critical and suggest that our right back last night looked horribly out of his depth and that our centre midfield looked uneasy every time they might have to pass the ball forward.  It's easy to bemoan players for not being able to take a corner without kicking it straight to the opposition (I'll hold my hand up as being guilty of that one).

And in the heat of the moment, you can forgive it to a degree.  But an hour or so afterwards it's surely time to be objective and reasonable.  Wednesday got promoted last season and are now adapting to a new level of the game where things are done faster and more mistakes are punished than they were last season.  Three of the starting XI last night were fairly new to the club and looked a little short of fitness.  Given their recent signings, they also haven't had much opportunity to play together as a team.

I realised last night that what makes my blood boil about football is other fans.  The people on Twitter who make ridiculous statements based on nothing factual.  The same people that can dish out abuse to players with one tweet and then send them a message praising them with the next.  The old guy 4 rows behind me who dished out a non-stop expletive tirade at the referee after 80 minutes despite there being kids nearby.  The idiot who threw something onto the pitch last night.  The bloke at the side of me that got up and left his seat 5 times to smuggle a beer into his seat (North Stand, row 26, seat 31, you know who you are).  Those people need to experience the real world.  Watch the news or read a book.  You're entitled to your opinion the same as me and every one else.  But to do it in such an ignorant manner is appalling.

Calling for the manager who presided over (almost all of) our joint longest unbeaten run in history after 6 games is mind numbingly stupid.  Blaming the keeper because you personally like the other goalie more is insane.  Booing your own players is ridiculous.  Maybe I should just stay off Twitter after the match.

I don't believe for a second that Wednesday have any right to go out and win a single game of football - you have to earn your points and accept the defeats when you weren't good enough.  Sadly, last night was the latter.  Finishing 4th bottom this season will be an achievement.  I quietly predicted we'd finish 14th in May and I'll stick to that.  Last night's game is over and all anyone can do is look forward to Saturday against Bolton.

I don't to rant.  Last night was just a bad day in the office.  It's a long time until May and I have no doubt the same lunatics who were ready to explode with rage last night will be eating their words in a few months (and will have conveniently forgotten all their hysterics by then).  This is my 27th year visiting Hillsborough and stepping out of the concourse never gets tiring, regardless of how we play.

But I'm glad the club isn't my only reason for being.

Up the Owls.

P.S. Credit due to all 25,000 there last night for impeccably observing a moment's silence (and applause) for the Hillsborough Families and the 2 lads from the Yorkshire Regiment who died in Afghanistan

Concerning Sport

Hello

After a ridiculous absence I'm back.  It's not been a conscious decision to stay away - I've just struggled to find something meaningful to write about.

The last few weeks saw the country gripped with Olympic fever and I was no exception.  I was fortunate enough to get tickets to 4 events (football, tennis, handball and volleyball) and I was so enthralled with the buzz of the Olympic Park that I signed up for Paralympic tickets as soon as I got home.  I'll finally get to go inside the Olympic Stadium this Friday for two sessions of athletics.

I took my daughter to the tennis at Wimbledon as well and she was remarkably well behaved for a 2 year old.  I wanted her to know that she'd been part of this great spectacle, even if she wasn't necessarily ever going to remember it herself.  Aside from being asked to leave Court 2 at one point for walking around and shouting, she survived a full day of sport unscathed.

Last weekend, the football season returned to fill that void left by London 2012.  A number of people (including journalists far and wide and those at the FA) were quick to note the differences between top flight footballers and our Olympic athletes and 'demand' something be done about it.  Privately I think I was one of those people too.  Having been a follower of football (in one way or another) for a good 27 of my 31 years, it's fair to say I'd forgotten how brilliant other sports can be, and how humble and gracious other sportspeople can be too.

Football is a worldwide "brand" (I hate that term) and due to it's lucrative appeal it has over a number of years descended into a soap opera of sorts.  For those less familiar with this, you only have to look at Sky Sports' self-parody of a Transfer Deadline Day to see what I mean.  I've tried to stay away from "articles" about what Rio Ferdinand tweets or who Ashley Cole has dinner with - such things fill me with an inner rage that isn't good for my health.

Compare the daily, relentless, in-your-face minutiae of football with the Olympics and the difference is so refreshing you'd think someone had thrown a glass of water in your face.  As you'll no doubt be aware, our Olympians work incredibly hard for a fraction of the recognition (and for the most part, a fraction of the financial reward) of top flight footballers and, it seems, do so with a graciousness you'd be hard pressed to believe.

And so, for the first time, my enthusiasm for the start of the football season was subdued.  This is the first year I've ever had a season ticket for my club (Sheffield Wednesday), and yet somehow I was struggling to motivate myself submerge myself back into football. 

Admittedly, a lot of that went out of the window on Tuesday night as I turned up at Hillsborough for our first home game of the season.  I sang as passinately as I've always done and shouted as loudly as ever when we scored, but it felt a bit different watching the game.  Seeing players (ours and theirs) shouting at the referee for calls that were never going to go their way seemed cheap somehow.  My Dad turned to me at one point and said "you wouldn't have see that [player rolling around on the floor after a 'foul'] at the women's football the other week".  And he was right.

I don't mean this to sound like some incredible revelation - it's quite the opposite really.  To anyone who's not a football fan (and to a lot that are) this is old news. 

Football is, and will always be, my first love.  I've been going to Hillsborough for about 26 years now and I'll keep going as long as I can.  But I think the Olympics has changed my view of it as a sport - in the short term at least.  There's a good chance that the spirit of London 2012 will die away (the reasons for that are numerous and probably another post in their own right), but for now, the daily gossip columns and "Breaking news" stories can go whistle.  I've long understood that football is only a part of llife, but now, more than ever, I'm starting to insulate myself from the trivialities of it all.

My best football memories make me smile - I haven't cried about football since I was 9 years old - but I'm still not yet past the stage of watching Jessica Ennis win the 800m without welling up.

Whether London 2012 inspires a generation remains to be seen.  It's inspired me to look at my sporting life differently and that feels like a good thing.

I know this is just a set of random thoughts, but I felt like I needed to write it down.  If you made it this far, then thanks.

I'll be back again soon no doubt.

Andy

P.S. As part of my final fundraising attempts of 2012, I ran a 10km the weekend the Olympics finished.  I worked out if I was 2.5 faster, I'd give Mo Farah a run for his money.  My Olympic dream may be over.  I'm running my second and final 10km next Sunday (2nd September) and like the other one, I'll be doing so in quite a bit of pain, having struggled badly with shin splints since the London Marathon. This will be my last run of this year as I'll be switching to low impact exercise afterwards to give myself some proper rest ahead of training for a half marathon next year.  I won't post a fantastic time, and it'll hurt like hell, but I'm going to do it anyway.  If you want to put a few quid towards my attempts to raise £200 then you can do so by following this link to my fundraising page.  Thank you.

Half Year Review

Whilst the title of this week's post sounds like one of those awful things your manager makes you do at work, I'm hoping that this will be slightly less turgid.

I'm going to review the first 6 months of 2012 against my New Year's Resolutions to see how well things are progressing.  It's obviously not the most accurate barometer of success/failure, but I it's better than nothing right?

I was searching for my earlier post where I discussed my resolutions when I realised I never revealed what they were so apologies for that.

1. Run the London Marathon

Well this is a pretty easy one to tick off.  As anyone who read this blog before May this year will tell you, this has been my main goal for quite some time and I can proudly say that I managed it without too many problems in the end.  I've bored you to death with tales of the marathon for a few months now so I won't go over it again.  If you're not familiar with it all, here's a link to the post-race blog

2. Raise at least £1000 for charity

This is another one that I'm proud to say that I've achieved, though I definitely couldn't have done it without the help and support of so many people.  My marathon fundraising brought in a total of £1500 for Diabetes UK and The Children's Hospital Charity in Sheffield for which I'm incredibly grateful.

I've definitely caught the running bug though (despite my appalling lack of fitness since the marathon) and I've entered into two more 10k runs this year.  I'll be doing the brilliantly named Cannon Hall Run in August which is a course from Barnsley town centre to Cannon Hall.  I'll then be doing the Great Yorkshire Run in September which will start go from Sheffield city centre to Hillsborough Stadium and back.

Once again I'm running for the two charities above, hoping to raise a modest £200 in total.  If you'd like to donate, you can do so by visiting my fundraising page

3. Get a photograph published or sold

This is a difficult one in many respects.  I've struggled for both the inspiration and motivation to use my camera as lot this year which is something I'm determined to change in the second part of this year.

I was fortunate enough to be able to take some press photos for a Wakefield band call Skint & Demoralised for the launch of their new album earlier on this year.  A few of those got used as promo pictures as part of that launch which I was really pleased with.  You can see those photos here.

I'm hopeful that something else may come up later on this year but I'll try and get more pictures out there which I've always been a bit nervous of before.  I'll leave this resolution half ticked off for now.

4. Carry on training to run the Sheffield Half Marathon 2013

I've recently got back out running after a good few weeks off after the marathon (down to injury rather than apathy).  I've forgotten how hard it was to build up a base level of fitness and I mentioned a few weeks ago about how I felt like I was starting over in many respects.

Running is really my only form of regular exercise and so I'm determined to keep to about 10 miles a week for the rest of this year which should give me a solid platform to build up to the Sheffield Half Marathon next year.

For those of you not familiar with my history with this race, I injured myself whilst training for it in 2008 and the recovery took quite a while.  I see it as my nemesis a bit now and so I'm determined to beat it next year

5. See at least 12 gigs

I enjoy live music a lot and so I struck a compromise with my wife that sees us get at least one night out a month.  She meets up with friends and I go out to see a band.

So far this year I've seen 7 gigs and I have 3 more on the calendar so I'm confident of meeting this one by the end of the year.  It's difficult to pick a favourite as they've all been different, but Mile Kane in Leeds, Ladyhawke in Sheffield and Jay-Z & Kanye West in Manchester could possibly be my top 3

6. Read at least 10 books

I completely realise that this sounds like a pretty poor target but I'd wager that I probably read less than 10 last year and that was something I wanted to change this year.  Whilst 10 is a modest target, I think it's achievable and I think that's the main thing.

I've ploughed through 6 so far which isn't too bad if you consider the first four months of this year were almost exclusively spent running.  Reading Guitar Man by Will Hodgkinson inspired my Birthday Resolutions and I've just finished reading Just Kids by Patti Smith which I enjoyed immensely.

I currently have three more on the go but I'm focussing on Whoops by John Lanchester which is non-fiction and explains how the world financial crisis cmae about.

7. Continue my blog after the marathon

This sounds like a bit of a cop-out resolution but I really enjoyed blogging about the marathon and the training and I wanted to continue writing this (albeit less frequently) if I could.

I'm finding things to write about a bit difficult to come by at times, but I'd like to think I'm doing a decent job of only writing when I have something to say rather than blogging every week just for the sake of it.

The one year anniversary of We Were Promised Hoverboards is on the 9th of September so hopefully I'll be able to make it through to that and have something to celebrate.

8. Support the community via sponsorship/donations etc

This came about because I was asked to support a few things in my local community last year and I wanted to try and do that again if possible.

I'll be honest in saying that I've not done much on this so far this year but I'm hoping I'll be able to contribute and make a difference before the year is out.

I did recently sponsor a charity festival in Harrogate which allowed a friend to raise about £1400 for charity so I suppose that would count.  Hopefully I can do something closer to home in the next few months.

9. Expand the smaller areas of my company

This is another one where I haven't really done anything worth shouting about.  I work for myself doing consultancy work for the most part, but I've tried to develop a bit of a sideline in doing web design and some photography.

As I alluded to in point 3 above, I haven't really done as much there as I'd like and, despite some advertising, there's not been much call for the web design service I'm offering.

Again, I think there's the opportunity to change this before the year is out, but I'll not be too disappointed if this is the one that gets away as my main line of work takes up most of my time.

10. Make some friends

This sounds like a bit of a poor resolution as well, but it's not without ground.  I moved back to my home town early last year and whilst everything looks incredibly familiar, the people I used to know are now really just Facebook friends and nothing more.

Working for myself means I'm often changing jobs and so developing "work friends" as is normal in most jobs is a bit more difficult for me.

I've been really lucky to connect with a good group of people on Twitter who all share a common love of Sheffield Wednesday and we've all got together before a few games this year.  I'm sure we'll all manage that again a few times this coming season too.



So really that's how the first half of my year is going against my "plan".  I've got the original list of resolutions taped up against my oven at home and it's good to have them visible as a bit of a reminder.  I'm not convinced I'll be able to tick all 10 off by New Year's Eve, but if I get through more than half then I'll be veyr happy.

Thanks for reading - appreciate I've gone on a bit there.  Hope you enjoyed it.

Where to next

Hello again

I'm cautiously dipping my toe back into the vast pool of blogging after a brief absence.

I've been wary of coming back without having something to say.  I mentioned in a previous few posts that I didn't want to blog for the sake of it - it's fine having somewhere to voice your opinions, but doing so when you have nothing to offer is an exercise in futility.

That said, whilst this post should do something to set the tone for the future, I'm still a little unclear about what that is.  I'll continue to talk about running and diabetes as I did previously.  I've yet to put my trainers back on in anger yet, though this is mostly due to allowing myself a bit more time for bruises and blisters to subside.  I'm going to keep running for regular exercise, but I've also got more races lined up too - the BUPA Great Yorkshire Run in Sheffield being the next one in September.

I suppose it makes sense to blog about something you know and/or something you love.  Whilst I would never claim to be any sort of authority on writing or blogging and the like, I know that the things that engage me personally are are those with a clear sense of passion.  Again, I hope I have conveyed that to a certain degree in the past and hopefully I'll continue to do so every now and then.

Of course the list of things I could write about is quite lengthy.  For any of you that have engaged with me in one way or another know that one of my greatest passions is football (and of course my beloved Sheffield Wednesday).  I've never written about football for a few reasons - mostly that I think it's quite a divisive subject to write about and I'm not sure I'd do it well enough.  This coming season will be my first with a season ticket for Hillsborough, so the odd football post may appear.  Reading it is not compulsory of course.

As for my other interests (read: things I could potentially bore you with), I expect you'll get the odd post about cooking, photography and music with the occasional "opinion" post thrown in for good measure.

For me, the immediate future holds a trip to Krakow for the wedding of some friends.  It also coincides with my 31st birthday so there'll be a big party and a great atmosphere though I suspect most of the attention will rightly fall on the happy couple.  I'm attempting to learn a bit of Polish for the trip which is progressing about as well as you'd expect.  I'm confident I'll know enough to be polite which is all I ever really try for.  Manners go a long way right?  I'm planning a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau while I'm out there as well.  I can't imagine it being anything other than incredibly sobering and emotional, but I feel like it's something I have to see.  More on that in the coming weeks I expect.

I had an incredible following on this blog throughout my marathon training and it'd be unrealistic to think that all of you will continue to read this as the weeks go on.  Hopefully for those of you that do occasionally pop in, there'll be something worth looking at.

I'll sign this off now.  I'm not sure if I've really articulated what the future WWPH posts will look like, but hopefully a few of you will stick around to find out.

I do owe everyone one final thank you for the support I got for the London Marathon.  I've now raised an incredible £1500 + Gift Aid for my two charities and I'm really touched that so many people kindly donated their money.  Thank you ever so much.

Talk to you soon

Andy