I love the northern hemisphere.

There is something so deeply, intrinsically right about Christmas and winter. Growing up in Australia, I remember sweating on the porch, eating steaks from the barbeque and playing cricket on the street. It was amazing, but it felt off somehow.

Every book I’d read, every film I watched, they all suggested that Christmas was a time for eggnog and mulled wine and marshmallows on an open fire. Instead we would pack into the car and drive to the beach, and there are few times in the year where I’d feel less comfortable shirtless than having just eaten my weight in plum pudding.

Like I said, I love the northern hemisphere.

Anyway, I also love lists, so here is a list of the things I am pretty chuffed happened in 2014.

• While on a trip to Center Parcs I did falconry, and it was awesome. Birds are awesome.

• I finally met a proper owl. A proper owl. That might not seem like the biggest deal, but I have a pretty big one drawn on my arm, so it seemed thematically appropriate.

• I lost three stone after joining a rugby club, and got man of the match at a tournament in Edinburgh.
• I also tackled someone. Which sounds pretty part and parcel of joining a rugby team, but isn’t something you get to do very often as a functioning adult. It was wild.

• I joined Unbound, and we won the best publisher website at the Futurebook awards.

• I made a video using the Web Audio API for True, which didn’t win anything.
• I technically got engaged for a first and second time in the space of twelve months.
• Went to Berlin, Amsterdam and Iceland, and hung out with two-thirds of my siblings in Paris, Edinburgh and London.

• Went punting in Oxford.
• Recorded a new album, called Oh, Infinity.

• Spent a weekend in an actual castle.
• Redesigned this very website.