Review of 2015

It’s become a tradition of mine, at this dark end of the year, to look back over the previous twelve months and try to make some sense of it all. This year, my overwhelming feeling is ‘so that’s why I’m so tired’.

The last twelve months have been tough. Tough like wading through a stinky swamp. Tough like being trapped in a stormy sea, unable to make it to shore, waves breaking over your head one after another. At times my optimism has been tested. Very tested. There were moments when I wondered if I might be on some weird unreality show (The Hunger Games?). Moments when I wanted to croak ‘I’m just an ordinary person, I give up, now get me the f**k out of here’.

It’s enough I think to say that I am still here. We’re still here. I’m still learning as I go along and we are still going along. Which is good.

There have been many career highlights from which I take comfort that I must be doing something right.

Many thanks to the South and North London Adoption Consortia as well as We Are Family, to the University of Sunderland who is doing great work with it’s Children Effected by Loss and Trauma project, to Jenny Molloy and the University of Huddersfield whose students and lecturers it was so encouraging to meet, to the East Midlands Adoption Consortium and Professor Julie Selwyn for a great day (and a memorable pre-conference night out), to The Royal College of Child Psychiatrists and in particular to the real Professor Green and to John Simmonds, to Michael Roach of John Ball Primary School and finally to Dr Vivien Norris of The Family Place who hosted me for a great day in Hay-on Wye.

The Adoption Support Fund launched in England in May and was an important milestone in my year. Having witnessed and played a small part in it’s design and testing and seen the thought and care that went into what looks like a deceptively straightforward scheme I stand back and see something valuable, with more potential. This year Al Coates and Jenny Jones joined the Department for Education group which addresses Adoption Support. It has been a real pleasure to work with them both (and much less onerous than being ‘the adopter’).

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Much of the ‘sat in front of a desk’ parts of 2015 have been taken up with the completion of the manuscript for my third book: a novel for children called Billy Bramble and the Great Big Cook Off. Billy is eleven years old. Others may see him as a bit of an odd bod with a temper, who is naughty and disruptive at school but he has a unique voice and an interesting story to tell. It’s been a joy to write and to see being brought to life by the illustrator Kara McHale. It will be published in March 2016.

Cultural high points were strangely few this year (for reasons of being chest deep in swamp perhaps) but included the televised version of Wolf Hall (deliciously good), a live War Horse and getting the Star Wars experience in a small, art deco cinema. The best book I read by a country mile was Heretics by Will Storr. It inadvertently taught me a lot about trauma and brains and all that and explained why twitter (and real life) can be an uncomfortably extreme place. Don’t read it if you prefer not to be challenged about what you think and believe to be true. I also enjoyed binge reading the Clive James memoirs and Lila by Marilynne Robinson.

As I’ve said often, and it’s well worth saying again, the support and encouragement from friends and readers on social media has been second to none. Thank you for your company, comfort and general big-heartedness. I like that it’s delivered with such sharp wit – laughing through the dark moments is an important way to preserve one’s psychological health.

And so for now, in these closing moments of 2015 I wish you all, families of whichever design, professionals and readers, the very best for 2016. May it be peaceful and fruitful.

2 thoughts on “Review of 2015”

  1. Thrilled to hear you’ve got out of the swamp enough to finish another book! Well done you! And love the glorious Jacantha.

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