The Scream – 2019

With the Chimes at midnight fast approaching and which I’m sure many will stay up to hear, I contemplate 2019 and what sort of year it has been. Frankly, it’s one I’m glad to see the back of. There have been many bad things on a global scale happening, of which the bush fires in California and Australia stand out as true tragedies – not least because of the clear correlation with global warming and our contribution to climate change. Then we had the culmination of the Brexit debate and a victory for a very right-wing Tory party. Makes me wonder how far the Uk is from where Germany was in 1933 – not very I suspect after a Leave campaign that played on people’s hate and prejudice.

On a more personal note, this has been a year of medical issues for me during which I have often felt that I was not in control of my health as I waited for the right type and dose of medicine to be determined through a process of trial and error. As a part of that and by pure chance I was found to be pre-diabetic. In some ways that’s a positive – because it is something that I can do something about and take control of in 2020.

Epi being knocked down at the start of December reallly put a final seal on the bad side of the year. While she is a lot better, it will be a while before she is fully fit and the anxiety I have been through in the intervening period has been very disruptive. I wonder sometimes… Why do we get married when so often it brings such pain. But then I remember all the love and caring for each other, the warmth and friendship, and the occasional passionate rows! Yes – that’s why we have long term relationships and that’s why they make life worth living!

My football team survived being relegated back in April. That should have been a positive but here we are back in the same position at the end of the year with the very real prospect that last season’s do or die effort was just a preamble to the inevitable drop this season. Currently, Wingate & Finchley are in a group of 5 teams from which 3 will be relegated – the teams above that group already have a 5-point margin. It’s frustrating watching as the team score a couple of goals to lead a game only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory – we’re leaking goals at the back and it’s hard to work out why as we have a pretty good set of defensive players and one of the best keepers in the league! Things have to turn around as of our game on New Years Day or it’s a downward journey for Wingate & Finchley. I think Charlie’s face in this photo sums up the feelings of fans at every game currently…

When I look back at 2019 all I feel is negatives – at least I think so. I was looking for some positives and intitially all I could come up with was the marvellous releases of simulation games on pc! I’ve had so much enjoyment from ‘The Hunter – Call of the Wild’ and ‘The Fisherman – Fishing Planet’, the latter releasing in 2019. And SCS Software have continued to provide new content for the excellent Truck Sim games. It’s coming to something when computer simulations are your highlight of the year! 😦

However, The last few months have seen Alasdair take on a lot of responsibility for his own future – arranging visits to potential universities if he gets the required grades. He’s suddenly grown-up over the last 9 months. He’s been working part time in the club kitchen for a year now and I have been very pleasantly surprised by the praise from the bar manager – he’s creating a very good impression. So that’s one big positive from 2019!

That Was The Year That Was – I hope 2020 will be much better!