End as You Mean to Go On...?
31 December 2023
To see how Sam Pepys spent this day 364 years ago, follow this link.
Given I spent my first 3 hours of yesterday at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, I’m not sure I can begin my diary in the same way as our home’s former owner, Samuel Pepys. I feel in reasonable health, and know for sure I’m not in any danger from heart attacks or clots. The weird antics of my heart aren’t even unusual, according to the doctor – just unusual for a man of my age, so… $:-/
Still: when it happens, the visit to the cardiologist will make a good entry for this ‘ere new venture of mine! When we moved into Pepys House in August of 2023, the most common response was, “Oo, will you start a diary then?” It’s like getting married, and fielding the inevitable, “Will you start a family then?” Now I can silence at least one of those questions…
I’ve actually kept a diary since before we moved in here – I just thought I’d wait to make it public till the dates aligned with ol’ Sam. It could be fun to compare life now with life exactly 364 years ago…
At the end of 2023, then, our family is one of four – my wife Emma and I, and our two surviving kittens: Tito Kitten and Pippa Pips. No servants as yet, though Pippa has been desperately moulting to decorate our home with fake snow for Christmas.
Ermma loves her job serving afternoon teas at Carriages of Cambridge. I am a storyteller, children’s author, alternative provision tutor, and director for a STEAM education and festival provider called Immersive Experiences. Within the latter, I also run Epic Tales, Immersive’s newly-established publishing department.
I’ve ended up with all these joyous jobs by combining my love of writing with a passion – some may say a penchant – for empowering others in some way. That passion has led me to the brink of releasing my most important publication to date: All the Better to Read You With: Stories & Lessons to Inspire Reading for Pleasure.
Co-written with my good friend Bex from the Happily Ever Teaching podcast, and illustrated by the amazing Korky Paul and his incredible apprentice Mario Coelho, it’s already received high praise from educators who’ve put it to use – such as Tiny Voices Talk author Toria Bono – and fellow children’s authors – including the award-winning Ian Whybrow, of Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs fame.
That’s coming out in the first month of 2024, and the launch party is pretty much all I can think about at the mo’. Well, that and Ermma’s birthday soon after. Beyond that, the future’s a thick fog…
Meanwhile, the world isn’t ending 2023 in the best of places. 364 years ago, Sam was nervous about his country returning to Civil War. Today, it’s easy to feel similarly. In the west, politics has got rather ugly lately. Just for a recent example, our Prime Minister Rishi Sunak got in a slanging match with the Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis over who owns the marbles that the British Lord Elgin rescued/nabbed from Ottoman Greece. It was schoolyard stuff: “I don’t want to meet with him, ‘coz he keeps saying my brother stole his brother’s pencil sharpener…!”
Nearby, the self-declared President of Russia, Putin, has also self-declared his country’s right to own neighbouring Ukraine – or is he invading to save Ukraine from Nazis? I’m not sure of his most recent spiel.
Then there’s yet another heart-wrenching situation in Israel and the Gulf. A militant organisation calling itself Islamic launched a horrific attack on Israelies back in October – so Israel has been unleashing equally horrific retaliation. From the outside, it’s very hard to give either power any sympathy – that’s reserved for all the civilian Jews and Muslims whose lives have been devastated in the crossfire.
It seems the reasons for all the above can be summed up in one horribly simple word: “history”. It has no regard for what people want and need today, or for tomorrow.
As Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell mentioned in their fine podcast The Rest is Politics, though, it’s something of a Christmas miracle that the Gulf situation hasn’t descended into out-and-out war between several states in the middle east.
But just three months in, the conflict is still kinda in its infancy…
Back at home, though, my own private condition is kinda “handsome”. Like Sam, my work has brought me to live in a fancy home with some of the richest heritage in the country – albeit also single-glazed. I’ve an incredibly supportive wife and family, a meaningful and relatively stable job, and a month ahead with a publication coming out that might just make a difference for some.
Just gotta hope a ‘dicky heart’ and/or the reinstatement of conscription don’t get in the way…