That was a struggle, but titles don’t always come easy. Here’s a little retrospective of the last year.

It has been a slightly exhausting start to the year, but one filled with more gaming than the last few months combined. In preparation for this post I had a look back through my archive and found an almost identical “year in review” post from the 5th of January 2023. There are a few similarities you might notice. How often do you visit South Korea in two consecutive years?

Writing on the Regular (Again!)

My first thought was to comment on the regularity of my posting schedule. For a long time there was no consistency in how often I was posting. It could be a day, a week, a month (or even more infrequently in some cases). Early in 2022 I committed to posting once a week, usually on a Thursday evening, and for the most part I have been able to keep up the momentum. It has been my only regular creative output and that alone has been enough motivation.

The Great Fire of Plymouth (2023)

It’s hard to believe it has been a year since my laptop spontaneously combusted. The replacement Dell sent has been woking admirably and (touch wood) remains scorch-free. As to the cause of the fire, it seems to have been a freak incident in an ageing battery. Thankfully the only casualty was a throw and sofa pillow. It could have been much worse but we were in the room when it went bang so were able to act quickly to remove it to a safe distance. And once safely removed, somewhat unsafely remove the SSD so all of my data was able to be recovered.

Drinks

My cocktail game has continued to improve through 2023 with the addition of some much needed glassware (a Japanese mixing glass), some proper bar spoons, and a few helpful books. This was also the year I put together my improvised spirit cabinet and built a few shelves for drink-related paraphernalia.

I have made a lot of cocktails but taken remarkably few decent pictures of them, so here’s one from early in 2023. The Sugar Plum Daisy. As much as I enjoy mixing drinks, alcohol isn’t something to be trifled with in excess. The most recent medical advice to avoid it if you can, but if not, then practice moderation and periods of abstinence. This year we’re doing dry January which is requiring a bit more creativity around spirit choices (Seedlip in place of gin for example) but I’ve made a few mocktails already including a Bramble and a gin sour.

Games

This time last year we were playing Horizon Forbidden West and Resident Evil 8. And this time we’ve got Horizon Forbidden West (the PS5 version) and Resident Evil…4? Yes, the remake this time. We’re a Residence of Evil, having played through every game except RE 6 in the last couple of years. I am looking forward to playing the RE 4 remake as it was a relatively modern game and still very playable. The Resident Evil 2 Remake is still one of the best of the bunch, although 8 might have crept into second place for me.

Santa kindly brought a PlayStation 5 (the full fat version) with a bunch of games. We’ve started out with Stray, Hogwarts Legacy, Deathloop, and Resident Evil 4 Remake. The backwards compatibility is impressive though, as we can access all of our PS4 games obviating the need for the PS4 Pro. Having said that, we’ve filled the PS5 disk already which is slightly concerning given the relatively few PS5 games installed. One game alone (the Last of Us Part II) required over 100 Gb before it could be played. That’s ten times the size of some of the smaller PS4 games. The PS4 Pro isn’t going away quite yet. The plan of action will be to get a big M.2 SSD to expand the PS5’s internal storage which should provide space for a few more titles.

Junior Doctor Strikes

We are in the midst of the longest ever bout of industrial action taken by NHS doctors over pay and working conditions. We wrote about the first round of strikes back in March of last year and although there has been some progress made in negotiations, we’re not there yet. As of the start of February we will no longer be “junior doctors” but fully support the actions of those taking part in strikes. Speaking from a privileged position in the excellent specialty of histopathology, things are much worse in almost every other branch of medicine with inadequate/unsafe staffing levels and all time low levels of morale. It’s no wonder recruiters from Australia and New Zealand have been hard at work advertising jobs with far better pay and working conditions in an attempt to (successfully) poach doctors. If we were working in clinical specialties I would be sorely tempted to pack it in and head to the southern hemisphere.

Trips and Travel

I spent a lot of time travelling around the UK in 2023, and farther afield. Sheffield, Liverpool, London, Brussels, and Bucharest. Most of the travel was for work but we did squeeze in a couple of holidays. The first was to Disneyland Paris in May, then the big trip to Japan and Korea in late October. We spent most of two weeks exploring a few of the constituent islands of Okinawa, finishing off with a few days in Seoul.

The trip was amazing, although the biggest disappointment was Mega Donki (a branch of Don Quiote, the famous Japanese everything shop) in Nago. It just wasn’t that mega, and didn’t really compare to the Donki in Tokyo, or even the one in Naha. If you are a Donki afficionado, you’ll appreciate the tip.

Projects

2023 was the year of the heat pump. And then it wasn’t. Then it was back on again! Yes, it was a rollercoaster ride but we now have a functional eco-friendly heating system that works much better than the previous gas boiler. There was a little bit of upheaval with the installation of new radiators, but much less than the original plan of re-piping the entire house. That would have been a trial.

The original installation was planned for a very cold February, but with the unavoidable delays and incompetence of British Gas, we ended up having our system installed by Octopus Energy at the beginning of August.

Many of the projects in the latter half of the year involved restoration post-ASHP installation, and I mentioned earlier about the drinks cabinet doors I built and installed myself. I also spruced up a desk for the conservatory, fit some more insulation to the loft once a cold water storage tank had been removed, and rebuilt the airing cupboard/hotpress.

Garden Transformation

I worked with my mum to turn the old scrub ground at the back of our property into a playground. The motivation to sort it out after getting the fencing replaced in March. Once it was properly enclosed we got to work clearing it out, digging up endless rubbish and bits of broken glass. I built a section of wall, mum planted a lot of shade-loving plants, then we lined the area and covered the whole thing with bark chippings. The next step is to finish the mud kitchen and restore the treehouse.

There was plenty of produce in the garden last year, with a glut of tomatoes towards the end of summer and gourds in late Autumn. The greenery has only just started to die back after the first proper frost. It’s time to get the ground prepared for the spring.

That about does it for now. There’s too much to summarise it in one post, but I’m looking forward to another year of Ordinary Decent Gamer and I value the support of all my readers.

Happy New Year for 2024!