Goodbye 2025...

We are, I am reliably informed, near to that arbitrary point in our planet's orbit at which much of humanity habitually mark the end of one and the beginning of another. I'm usually neither sentimental nor self-obsessed enough to write something to mark the occasion with a blog post, but looking back on the last eleven months and thirty days I'm struggling more than usual to convince myself that nothing much has happened. Aside from being one internal organ down on the complement I started 2025 with fifty-two-and-seven-fiftieths weeks ago^[1], a handful of things happened that I consider (in an entirely self-indulgent sense) to be noteworthy.

Seeing my own book for sale in the British Library's bookshop was pretty cool.

I might even get away with describing some of them as:

2025's Achievements

• Part way through the last three-hundred-and-sixty-five days (around Easter) I shrugged off the safety-net that was part-time teaching, and decided to commit to my freelancing business full-time. It seems to be going well so far: work seems to be gradually increasing, and I'm not bankrupt yet!
• Somewhere within the 8760 hours that made up 2025, my first book was published: The Mathematicians' Library is available in any decent bookshop or library, including via the widget below:

• Related to that, in amongst 2025's five-hundred-and-twenty-five-thousand, six-hundred minutes, I delivered my first in-school maths communication activities since leaving Bletchley Park in 2020: I visited a couple of schools in Yorkshire to take students from years 6 - 13 on some Adventures in the Mathematicians' Library.

Other achievements made during the previous thirty-million-or-so seconds include:

• Taking on voluntary positions for some organisations that I think are really important: I'm a governor for a local primary school; I'm one of three people working to represent Freelance members of GEM; and I'm such a brand-spanking new member of the BSHM's council that I haven't been added to the list on their website yet.
• On that note, at February's Research in Progress event Jason Yip and I presented early findings from a piece of research that we had worked on together^[2]...
• ... and as a result of that research we set up the History and Maths in Education Network^[3], officially launching it during our session at MathsConf39.

On a more personal note, I've also had some success in rebuilding a more regular reading habit that had dropped off in recent years; and I've been picking up my guitar a little more often too, including taking it along to 2025's Big MathsJam Gathering, where I took part in the Saturday evening MathsJam Jam.

So what's in store for the year to come?

2026...

I'm loathe to talk about wishes, hopes, or [shudder] dreams for the year ahead, as those words are all a bit wishy-washy. Simultaneously, I'm avoiding going down the route of setting myself targets or goals, because that would get a bit too close to the dreaded R-word^[4] for my liking. But some things that I'd like to happen in 2026 might include:

• Keep up the freelance working momentum, building on what feels like British heritage and cultural sector organisations gradually coming around to the idea that exploring their mathematical connections might be a great thing for themselves and for their audiences
• Have a great idea for another book, and get started on it
• Continue to build the History and Maths in Education Network, and find ways to make it useful and impactful
• Maintain and continue to build upon my reading habit
• Investigate ways I can realistically work more guitar playing into my life
• Use my innate privileges to be a better supporter of and ally to people who do not possess them.

All this on top of finding more time to relax, whilst exercising more, eating less (and more healthily), and winning some sort of lottery so that I can buy a house!

Footnotes

1. It was one of the less important ones, so nothing to worry about. [back]
2. A full report on that research is currently working its way through the peer review system, so watch this space. [back]
3. If you're interested in either mathematics or history (or both) and you're interested in exploring how ideas and themes from each can enrich the teaching of the other, then join us at historyand.mathsy.space! [back]
4. 'R*solutions', of course! You know, those lists of promises that people like to make on Jan 1st every year and then break every single one of them before February even starts walking up the driveway. [back]