2014 review

January 4^th already.  I’m back to the chalk-face in the morning and I am NOT looking forward to it.  I’m far too chilled out and Christmassy to contemplate having to cope with it being the start of a new term.  So instead of printing out the work for tomorrow’s classes, I thought I’d try and sum up my year – the year I didn’t actually blog much in!!  I actually didn’t feel sad to see 2014 go.  Maybe I’m just toughening up...or maybe it was something to do with all the accidents I seemed to have! 

BEST BOOK READ: I didn’t read much fiction this year, but ‘Life After Life’ by Kate Atkinson gripped me from beginning to end... and then the next end and the next.  Clever lady!

BEST FILM: I can’t actually remember going to the cinema at all this year.  It’s a new year’s resolution...  On DVD, it would have to be a Buster – probably ‘The Cameraman’.
BEST SONG: No – don’t have one of those either.  What have I been doing with my life this year??  Maybe something from ‘Into the Woods’ – probably ‘Agony’.

BEST THEATRE MOMENT: Can manage this one – either David Tennant and Michael Pennington in Richard II at the Barbican last January or Richard Armitage in The Crucible. And then there was Jersey Boys at the Sunderland Empire.  Rather loved Propeller at the Theatre Royal too.  And Warhorse.  Oh and Antony Sher as Falstaff.  And...
BEST BALLET MOMENT(S): Jamie Bond in ‘La Fille mal Gardee’.  No contest.  (Apart from Iain MacKay in ‘Beauty and the Beast’ at the Empire!)

BEST TV MOMENT: Again, nothing specific comes to mind, although I did really enjoy a very old Victoria Wood Christmas special over the holidays. 

BEST SILLY MOMENT(S): Buying a cowbell in Austria!  Staying up all night for the Scottish Independence Referendum, going to a Gin Festival with my lovely mad friend Pam.
MOST EMOTIONAL MOMENT: Jamie Bond, as above.  (I wept audibly.  And it’s got such a happy ending!) 
BEST PURCHASE(S): British Library Newspaper Archive subscription.  I am now addicted.
BEST CAKE: Mozart cake in Salzburg.
BEST NIGHT'S SLEEP: still Jury's Inn, Birmingham!!!  Best beds in the world!
BEST PLACE(S) VISITED: Salzburg, Venice, Stratford for the archives, Glasgow.
BEST CONCERT(S): Eddi Reader, on my birthday.  Love the woman!
BEST DECISION: My choice of dissertation topic!!!! Still!!!!
BEST DISCOVERIES: Carlucchio’s breakfasts, caramel waffles, intellectual ‘retreats’, Newcastle City Library.

BEST MOMENT(S): Oliver!, getting the feedback for my dissertation and knowing I’d proved something to myself, finally riding on the London Eye, arriving in Venice at sunset.

Happy New Year!