New year, same me!
2024 was wonderful as it was the year I became a mum, but in 2025 I’m looking forward to getting some of the old me back!
2024 was both a big and a small year. Big because we had our baby boy, Duncan, and small because I don’t really know what happened after that. He was born in July, and the three months after he arrived are still a complete blur. I kept Duncan alive, my husband kept me alive, and that was about it. It was a time of great wonder and joy, but also great boredom.
The year two became three.
Before Duncan came, in February, we became the proud new owners of a cute little yellow house in the country two hours north of Uppsala, where we spent Duncan’s first Christmas and where I’m now writing this blog post. We just managed to get it furnished in time to host my husband’s family at Easter, and mine at Christmas. But there’s still a lot to do and a lot of my goals for the New Year relate to the house.
Our house in spring; see the top photo for winter.
Duncan spent the first few months of his life at our small apartment in Uppsala, which we are still renting, dividing our time between Uppsala and Bergvik, where the new house is. We’re calling it a holiday home, although we aim to spend most of the winter here as nothing much happens in Uppsala during the winter anyway and it’s cosy up here, with more indoor space and lots of home projects to work on.
Speaking of which, I’ve just canned our first batch of chicken stock for the new year and it’s inspired me to jot down a few goals for 2025, of things in my life I’d like to make space for again, if possible. Most of 2024 was consumed by Duncan, which I don’t resent at all, but I’m excited to see him grow a little more independent each day and to regain some of the independence I lost in becoming a mum. So, with that in mind, below are some of my goals for 2025 (in no particular order):
- Get back into cooking and particularly canning food. Some of the things I’d like to can this year are stocks, beans, soups, stews, cordials, pie and crumble fillings, fruit juice, and tomato passata. Not too ambitious then 🤣 We’ll see how much I actually get time for! Although the whole idea of the canning is that it should save us time in the long run by taking some of the work out of cooking.
First full canner of the year.
- Make improvements to our house. An absolute must is that we need to repaint it, and maybe replace some of the wood at the front. I’d be really happy if, in addition to repainting it, we could do up at least one room. And I’m going to aim for Duncan’s bedroom, because it’s the smallest, and because my greatest dream is that one day he’ll at least nap there instead of on me, but for that he’s going to need a bed and it’s pretty sad in there at the moment so I want to make it nice for him as well first. Any other rooms we manage to do by the end of the year will be bonuses.
- Get back into gardening. I bought a bunch of stuff to make an indoor flood and drain hydroponics system then ran out of time to actually build it before Duncan came, but it would be great to at least start growing our own herbs again. And perhaps to make one small vegetable patch outside using the No Dig method of Charles Dowding’s, whose book I bought last year.
Poor, neglected, DIY hydroponics.
- Get back into research. My PhD has been on hold for most of this year, but lately I’ve been really itching to get back into it, Duncan willing. I did manage to get through the proofs for a book chapter and to keep up with one collaboration over the Christmas holidays, so I’m cautiously optimistic that I can do a bit more research next year, though my husband thinks actually finishing the thesis by the end of the year is a bit much to ask, given we also have to take Duncan to Australia for his first birthday, visiting Malaysia and Japan on the way there and back. We’ll see what happens. Suffice to say I’ll be very grateful for any research projects completed this year, however many that ends up being!