It’s the end of another year and another recap post. I make these on the actual last day of the year, not the beginning of December (what am I, Spotify Wrapped?)

The highlight of the year has to 100% be my trip to Rome. It was my first solo city break. While doing things on my own is nothing out of the ordinary for me, this was the first time I have taken a multiple-day trip to a place abroad (or in my case, to a country I don’t live in, as I technically live abroad) by myself. My previous holiday in Sicily (I seem to have developed a thing for Italy, ha) was booked through an agency specialising in solo travel, so there were other people on the same trip and I spent time with them. But this time, I explored the city according to my own itinerary and it was beautiful! Tip: if you’re going anywhere with this many tourists, I recommend a skip-the-queue ticket for any major sights. I did it with Vatican Museums and Colosseum, and it was very much worth it.

Another adventure was my day trip to Edinburgh. Admittedly, travelling 200 miles there and back only to watch a movie at a film festival is objectively insane, but that is why it was memorable.

See National Gallery on the above picture, in the bottom right corner. That’s where the screening took place. The film was All The Devils Are Here, for me the biggest surprise of the year; I didn’t expect it to be so good. Unfortunately it has been review-bombed on IMDb–please do not trust that rating, it is not correct–but that’s a topic of its own.

I also enjoyed my outing in Clitheroe in the spring. I realised I have not explored Lancashire as much as I should, so that’s something to remedy in 2026.

My favourite blog post I made this year, and maybe my most favourite of all time, though, has to be My 10 Favourite Sam Claflin Roles. It runs to almost 7000 words, something I definitely didn’t plan. I just kept writing. Sam has had so many different, varied roles, and he absolutely excels as both a hero and a villain–and anything in between–but it’s very, very rare to see anyone acknowledge that. Being a fan of Sam Claflin is a constant struggle between wishing some recognition on him and concluding that one likes him best the way he is, because he is so incredibly down to earth. But then you see the likes of Jacob Elordi being called “the new Daniel Day Lewis” and once again question what the hell is the point of this industry. So, anyway, being the change I wish to see, I blog about Sam myself. (I also made a separate post about his The Count of Monte Cristo series.)

The post is slightly out of date now, as two more productions have since been released–the above mentioned All The Devils Are Here and the series Lazarus, which has been filmed here in Manchester. So now I have 12 favourite roles instead of 10. As another fan suggested to me, I might make the Sam-blogging an annual event for his birthday.

I have to mention, too, that Sam was part of the cast of the audio drama The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie. Yes, the crossover between my favourite author and favourite actor has truly taken place, albeit only in audio format. He voices Mr Cust, one of the most memorable characters in the Queen of Crime’s canon. Am I lucky or what? Hercule Poirot is voiced by Peter Dinklage.

I’m still quite not satisfied with my still life photographs, but it is a work in progress. Sometimes I delete posts and republish them with new pictures.

Other than the above, I had a good time at a recent Bastille concert, one of their From All Sides tour, celebrating 15 years in the business.

A TV show I enjoyed watching this year was Downton Abbey–to which I was 15 years too late, but I managed to catch up on everything just in time for the Grand Finale film. You’d think I would have seen it hundred times by now, but well, I didn’t–until 2025. Another one was Wheel of Time, which I also managed to catch up with just in time for Season 3–only for it to get cancelled. Such is the word of TV today. (Limited series seem to be the way to go.) House of Guinness was a blast, and one also filmed around Manchester.

As for books, because I completed both Agatha Christie’s and L.M. Montgomery’s bibliographies already, I am seriously diving into Daphne du Maurier and this year I added Frenchman’s Creek and The Scapegoat to my Read pile. Such vastly different books written by the same author; Daphne is really underrated. Rebecca is an outstanding piece of work, it’s my favourite, but she wrote so many other good books!

I said a tiny lie above–I did not complete Agatha Christie’s bibliography in 2024, because I still had her autobiography to finish. Which I have done so now, in audio format. She goes into quite a lot of detail, some of it is more interesting, some of it less so, hence why I recommend the audiobook.

On another note, I have now passed the the point where I have lived in the UK for longer than I lived in my home country. How long that will last, however, is entirely out of my hands–it depends on whether the voters will choose hatred of immigrants as their main issue on next election. Whatever will be, will be, as they say.

Hope for more good things to come in 2026!