This was the year I became fifty, and my life has been an exhausting flux. And in the wide world everything slowly began to start crashing down. As Charlie Brooker said, 'Osama Bin Laden was killed - I bet you had forgotten' because so many things have happened since. And we are not thinking 'Phew that was a tough year, hope 2012 is a bit easier', because we know it won't be.
My good friend Fred died this year.
happytune had a new baby, and my brother became a father for the fifth time. The charity I work with got a third of a million pounds from the National Lottery - a real success story for us, ensuring our continuing survival. I lost my job in a now-defunct quango, and got a new one teaching at a University. The new one hasn't worked out as well as I hoped - not enough hours - so I am still looking. One book sold 20,000 copies, another book was written and submitted to the publisher, and a new book proposal was accepted. So, the conveyor belt of my minuscule writing career is functioning. I was hoping that part time teaching+writing would earn me enough to get by, but with two kids at University it's not enough. In 2012 I will need to either find full time work, or move to a smaller house, so one way or another there will be a big change.
It's strange that this life - a job I am (fairly) good at, writing that sells (a bit), a family that love me - represents a failure, and yet I am a failure, just because I don't make enough money to support my children. I wish it were not so, but our society is mediated by money, so it has been tough to lose a full time income. I have an interview or two coming up, so we shall see.
