Goodbye 2014

I'm easing back into this gently.

In 2014 I did lots of things. We finished watching Breaking Bad. Then I watched Girls. We all went to Paris for a week in February and walked for miles. I broke my little toe. I went to Aix-en-Provence in March for a conference. I followed the debate on the Scottish referendum and gave a talk about it in a lycée. I went overboard with tadelakt when we had a bit of work done on the house. I tweeted a bit less than last year. The children turned into teenagers (without E actually being a teen). Z went on a school trip to the USA and we all survived. Then his voice broke. E got an iPhone and she never looked up again. We met my mum in Majorca for spring break. I spent a few days in Cambridgeshire just as the sunshine arrived and it was picture-postcardesque. Then I went to Bergamo for a conference and stayed in a wonderful Airbnb rental that was better than any hotel. I got new glasses and more or less gave up wearing contact lenses. My favourite TV programme was Gogglebox but we still haven't got British TV. I had many delicious lunches and dinners at home and elsewhere with friends and family from near and far. I put almost all the weight I lost in 2010 back on again. I went to a double 50th birthday party in the Dordogne one day and then to Scotland via Limoges and Liverpool the next, then came back to France the following day. I spent a few lovely days by the beach in a friend's house in Arcachon.  As usual, we spent the summer in Scotland and the Dordogne where the weather was similarly mediocre. We celebrated my brother's 50th and I got a new dog-nephew (unrelated events). I made pavlova for the first time and also bread in a cocotte. I co-edited a book. I was really disappointed about the result of the referendum. I watched two series of Rectify. I saw a lot of stunning red skies. I probably spent far too much time on the internet although I didn't blog a single time. I took on new responsibilities at work and that was (still is) rewarding but occasionally stressful. I didn't like the latest Black Keys album as much as the one before. I seemed to listen to Paolo Nutini quite a lot on Spotify. We went to Barcelona for the autumn holiday and I was taken aback by how much I loved the Sagrada Familia. I taught quite a lot and I went to more meetings than ever before. I listened to The Serial podcast. I discovered cauliflower rice and then I went off it. My Facebook identity was stolen for a couple of hours. I organised a conference and it was fun. I continued to post lots of photographs of Bordeaux on Instagram. In November I went to Brussels and it was freezing but already Christmassy. I enjoyed taking lots of photos but let my Flickr account wane. I got a new camera for Christmas. We stayed in France for the festive season and our families came to us. I read a fair number of books, of which more anon.