I've been putting off writing a blog post, knowing that I need to start and carry on with some consistency has felt like a difficult task but I think it's important to have some kind of open and public record of my thoughts. I used to write occasional diary entries as a teenager into my early 20s and I came across some diaries and packed them away before we moved to a new property in May 2025, it's always a strange feeling when you come across old items like this that give you a glimpse into where your mind was at and what your worries, wants and dreams were. and I find it's quite easy to get lost in memories that have been prompted from older objects, perhaps to easier times or times that were difficult to cope with but have lost any kind of weight to them now that you're beyond them. I suppose I feel quite uncomfortable being in that position, knowing what I know now and who I was back then. I suppose it's natural and I will probably feel the same way about these posts in the future, perhaps even foolish, but it is another way of expressing myself and conveying my character.
So it's just been about half a year now living at the new place with the parents, it's been quite a difficult transition for me from going from having relative freedom in a space separated from the house out in the garden to being in a smaller room in close proximity to my parents. One of the biggest challenges from the off and still is are the cats, I spend most of my time worrying about them even though they are well adjusted now. The newest challenge from early December 2025 was that Jasper was taken to the vet and we were told he had diabetes which I suspected after seeing a change in his behaviour. He's doing much better now though and has two insulin injections every day though we are still at the stage where he needs to been seen regularly in order to work out the most optimum insulin dose he should receive, going to the vets fills me with dread. I'm hoping after the next few visits things will be on track so the time between visits are maybe once or twice a year.
Other than that though I have been focusing on getting my health back to a level that is easy to manage. It's been about a year and a half now of slowly moving forward in that regard, some of the big initial steps was coming off anti psychotic and anti depressant medication and coming to an almost complete halt with alcohol. I had developed a problem that got worse over a period of around 3 years. As it stands I haven't had a drink since May 4th 2025, i'm aiming for a year before considering having the rare light alcoholic drink but at this stage I have no interest to do so. Around the time I made the first initial big steps my diabetes was out of control and I was able to get on top of that situation though there is a lot of room for improvement even now, I find it very difficult to sustain a simple diet and exercise regimen for very long. I largely put this down to stress that overwhelms me at times and puts me in a state where I stay indoors and find it difficult to approach daily tasks that would otherwise be a breeze. Generally speaking though it has felt like approaching a summit on a difficult climb that I can feel proud about doing. Come May 8th I will also reached a year without any tobacco smoking, possibly one of the hardest things to overcome on the journey so far.
Looking forward I would like to get into a voluntary work position for a while to build up some confidence, experience and to make it easier when the time comes to transition into a paid role. Though at this stage it feels a long way away and more like wishful thinking. I've been out of any kind of work for around 12 years now and I know it will be a struggle.
The website itself will hopefully demonstrate how i've spend some of that time, I didn't enjoy putting it together but felt it was a necessity and it took well over a month, I had intended to get it all done before new year 2025, but it really took another two weeks before I was happy. It does feel a little hacked together at this stage but I am happy enough with it to take a break before combing through what I have done, simplify things and speed it up a little bit on the server side. In terms of new content, I am hoping to update the gallery section at the end of each month. You will have noticed that the number of items for the past few years is very little and that's for a few reasons, my interests shifted a little and my desire to start programming applications that can do some of the creative work I have done has been a focus. In some ways I feel like I want to go deeper into the rabbit hole so there has been a lot of learning involved. Also dealing with some of the health challenges and reflecting on where I was prior to come to terms with is still an ongoing thing. That being said I think my approach will be to setup configs and then batch render them on another computer I have before getting them processed and ready for the site for an upload by the end of each month. I have another project I want to start working on soon that is at a very early planning stage, meaning I will be spending a lot of time in my head trying to come up with a system I can then put into a programmable state on the computer.
I don't know exactly how often I will update with a new blog post but i'm sure in the future they wont be as long as this one as i'm trying to set the scene for the future and give a little context on the past. So the expectation will be shorter posts but with more frequency, depending on whether I have anything of note to share. I hope everyone is having a good 2026 so far and wish you all the best.
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