Well hello and a very Happy New Year to you. Cold isn’t it? I hope you’re emerging from a lovely, restful break ready for a shiny new beginning. I’m going to be looking back at 2025 today as well as wrapping up Christmas. We had exactly the time I hoped for, it was low key and relaxed, we immersed ourselves in happy times with family and friends and just switched off from the outside world for a couple of weeks. We managed to keep mum-in-law safe from falls while she was staying with us which was the thing I was most worried about and she said she had a lot of fun which is all that matters.
So, I’ve been wondering how to start things off here for a new year. This is the first break of more than a week that I’ve had since last February and so my mind feels a bit sluggish. You see most of the time it whirs quietly in the background and I find myself writing to you in my head as life’s going on. Switching off from it over Christmas was almost like going from a digital world to an analogue one if that makes sense and I find myself rather unusually without a reserve of thoughts for the blog.
One thing that Mal and I missed doing was our usual Twixmas walk. With three extra journeys to Newcastle and back there just wasn’t time for it and I’ve missed reflecting on the year that’s gone so for the next two posts I think I’m going to do that here. I’ll look at the ups and downs of my ordinary midlife and see if there are any useful lessons that I can extract. I think I’ll divide it into two halves – and as I’m feeling the gloomy anticlimax of Christmas being over, I’m going to get the downs out of the way today so that we can move on to the good times next week.
Looking back at 2025 – Part One
When I look back at 2025 it feels as though it was a challenging year and yet nothing bad happened to me directly. The challenges were all to people I care about and I’ll start with the biggest one.
Loss Part One
You may remember that at the beginning of June our wider world was blown by the sudden loss of our youngest’s girlfriend’s brother. He was a wonderful boy who’d just completed a long apprenticeship to become a global specialist in a very intricate element of nuclear engineering. In recognition of his success he was offered a sabbatical and so he headed off to Thailand with a friend. Tragically, while he was out there he had a catastrophic moped accident. The biggest fear that those of us who have adult children live with every single day rolled out before our eyes and witnessing the agony of a family that we were closely connected to was indescribable.
It wouldn’t be right for me to go into the pain of his parents and his sister. You will be able to intuit it to a degree – multiply that by a million and you’ll come somewhere near to that level of suffering. What I can talk about here is the difficulty of watching our boy doing his utmost to help. He stepped into the inner circle of hell with them and the only thing we could do was be here to listen whenever he came home as he struggled to make sense of it all. And of course that wasn’t possible. There was no sense. It was, and continues to be, one of the saddest happenings that I have ever known.
When life explodes like that, fires catch light everywhere. You know that one outcome was Mal reliving the loss of three of his own siblings, particularly his closest brother who also died in a tragic accident at exactly the same age – and just as Mal was doing his university finals as our two were. So repressed grief was another deep wave through our summer. And the other fallout that we didn’t anticipate was the October split between our wonderful two. Perhaps sometimes in order to reboot you have to shut down completely and our lovely girl felt that she needed to be alone with her grief. And so after a summer of heartache we saw our youngest go through an autumn of heartbreak. The ripples of tragedy spread far and wide.
When I started writing this post my intention was to find an upside for the downs of last year but there is no upside to a loss like this one. However, I know the family are keen for awareness of the dangers of moped accidents in Thailand to be more widely known. So I can help with that. There are around 20,000 moped deaths there every single year. If you have a young adult heading that way please tell them this story. It’s important that they know that however strong and sensible they are, just like the boy we knew, they are vulnerable. There are a lot of dangerous roads and a lot of dangerous drivers, often under influence, so accidents can easily happen at no fault of their own. We’ve been told that many of the helmets that are issued offer no more protection than a shower cap. Please tell them that there are lots of countries where they can enjoy the freedom of a moped – but Thailand is not one of them.
And please send a collective wave of strength to a family that we will always care about who are continuing to live through this.
Loss Part Two
When I look back at 2025 another thing that strikes me is just how many of my friends lost their parents and I felt their sadness with them. They say that currently the average age for losing parents in the western world is 58 and in my experience it seems to be right. I know that quite a few of you were part of that group in 2025 too.
As you know I was 39 and 44 when my dad and then my mum died. It was hard at the time because nobody really understood what I was going through but it does mean I can be of help now when it hits my friends. And sometimes amidst the tears there are happier outcomes of bringing you closer together. I had a call out of the blue in October from my best friend from my schooldays. We’ve stayed in touch all these years, consistently but not regularly. However on that night she told me I was the one she needed to talk to. She said it was because I was the one who remembered her dad as her dad, in the days when we were children and teens. I knew exactly what she meant. The friends we make as adults can comfort us but nobody knows our parents like our formative friends. Over the days and weeks that followed she kept in touch to go through the funeral plans… to practice her reading over and over again… to tell me little stories about how her mum was coping… and just for the comfort of talking through all the memories we held of him. We’re closer again than we have been for years and I think we’re both happy about that.
Saying goodbye to your parents is complex isn’t it? You lose the person who knows so much about you and is a repository for memories of you that even you don’t hold. It also feels as if you’ve lost the umbrella over your head because for most of us a parent is the one person that we know will always shield us from anything they possibly can. You become more aware of your own mortality too, the turning of the generations suddenly sees you at the top of life’s tree and that’s very daunting. And yet sometimes there’s a sense of relief, particularly if there’s been a long, slow goodbye or if you’ve had a challenging parent – and that brings along a complicated feeling of guilt.
I’m so much further along this road than most people I know and yet as you probably gathered from my final post last year about Christmas and my mum, grief stills crops up along the way. I think it always will – our parents are our parents and grief is testimony to the bond, even if the relationship wasn’t always the storybook version. I find a useful outcome is that my strongest memories of my mum and dad are from when they were the age that I am now and onwards. Thinking back to how they handled this stage of life helps me to choose how I’ll approach mine.
If you’re in the middle of grieving your parents as so many of our friends seem to be, know that they’re always there in your head. You can always hear them and surprisingly their voice gets stronger over the years. They never leave you.
Looking back at 2025 – Caring
The flipside of loss. When so many of you so generously helped with my research for my book back in the summer of 2024, there were two topics that came up repeatedly when I asked about bumps in the midlife road. The biggest one was caring – mostly for elderly parents but also unexpectedly for other elderly relatives, partners and even unwell adult children. (The other, by the way, was midlife sex and relationships but today isn’t the day for that).
I was much younger when I went through the caring for parents journey – it was bloody hard (and I never usually swear) but I was already in mum mode so it felt like an extension of that. The thing I’m noticing at the moment is the additional difficulty that friends have at this stage of life because they have less energy and less oestrogen so therefore probably less patience. They’re also at a stage of life when they thought caring mode would be easing off and yet they’re having to switch it all back on again. A little while ago I had a coffee with someone who is deep in a Dementia journey with her dad and she said, “I feel awful saying this but I wish he’d just go – he’s so physically fit we could go on like this for years and years and I just can’t bear it.”
It reminded me that although we’re in a Dementia situation with mum-in-law we aren’t the 24-hour team who live around the corner. Caring is so important, so undervalued and so very hard. Of course there are resources and organisations but practical help only goes so far. The personal caring strain within families goes on behind the front door and takes its toll. It’s what we call ‘a bear hunt’ in our house – you know from the children’s story book – “we can’t go over it, we can’t go under it – we’ve got to go through it.” All I can do to help the people I know who are carers is listen. My friend is even more at the end of her tether as she faces a new year and so I will sit with her while she says whatever she needs to. If you’re struggling too, remember that you have a sympathetic community here and if you need to let off steam there will always be people who will understand and support you in the comments.
Looking back at 2025 – Job losses
One of my personal projects last year was to catch up with old friends in different places. I’m so glad I did it because getting back together with people I knew when I was younger was really restorative. We often store different memories and going over some of the times we’d had together that I’d forgotten about was nothing but joy.
One thing I couldn’t help noticing though was how many were losing their jobs – just at this point in our late 50s when it’s a bit too early to retire but finding new positions at the same salary is a big task. It was something that came up such a lot, especially in the run-up to Christmas that I thought I’d mention it here. The people who were coming out of it best were the ones who’d decided to use their skills and their network so that they can work freelance on their own terms.
I guess it’s what Mal and I have always done but for anyone coming out of a 30+ year career path it’s a big adjustment. The only thing that I’d say after 25 years of working that way is that you have to accept that you can’t have freedom and security. So you need to adjust to the fact that there is no sick pay/holiday pay/compassionate leave/health plan/pension scheme etc. You’ll probably find you work longer hours than you ever have because you respond to the projects that come your way. That’s the hard side but it balances out against the freedom you feel for not owing any particular part of your day to anyone in exchange for a salary.
Looking back at 2025 – Health
We’re getting to that age where things start to go wrong and if we’re not careful we can find ourselves in an endless complaining circle. Some of you who follow me on Instagram will have seen that I did an interesting project with a health company at the end of last year. I had a full body health scan, blood tests, blood pressure monitoring and because of my family history of cardiac issues I had a CT scan as well.
I had no idea what would come up but it’s absolutely fascinating ‘seeing’ what’s going on inside your body. I’ve always been most worried about heart problems. My dad had big heart attacks in his late 40s and early 50s and my siblings have lived with related issues such as high blood pressure and diabetes since their 40s. As you know I’ve worked hard on a preventative basis to try to swerve my genetic predisposition. I’ve been a gym regular since my 30s, stepping it up over the last five years and I’m careful with my diet. I only drink socially, I walk every day and when we go out we’ll always choose to dance if we can rather than sitting in a restaurant or a pub.
When the results came out they showed that thankfully my brain and organs were all in good shape and, to my great relief, there was a gold star added to my cardiac report saying that my heart and cardiac system were 10 years younger than my age. It’s a big weight off my mind and it’s really encouraged me to keep doing what I have been. I just wanted to point it out gently to you because it’s proof that you can, to some extent, manage your own wellness. Obviously there are things in sniper’s alley that you often can’t avoid, the sharpest shooter being cancer, however there are some that you can arm yourself against.
If you’ve been doing any kind of pension planning you’ll know that actuaries are projecting that midlifers today have a high likelihood of living to our mid-90s. That, of course, is lifespan but it’s really important to think about healthspan because it will be far more fun to spend most of those years feeling fit and well rather than taking up permanent residence in the doctor’s waiting room.
So I’m just going to say that it’s worth taking ownership of your health. There’s such a lot that you can have an impact on – weight, exercise, muscle, bones, alcohol – and you can still have plenty of fun. If you start dancing for example you’re getting a cardio workout and burning calories whereas if you’re sitting in a pub or restaurant you’re just consuming them.
The one negative thing that came up on my scans is that my spine isn’t so good. I have spondylosis with deterioration in my neck at C3/C4 and disc protrusions at L2/L3, L4/L5, L5/S1. Once again it comes from my mum and dad and this seems to be the one problem that’s hitting me harder than my siblings in life’s genetic lottery. It makes sense of the repeated injuries that I had to my back and shoulder throughout last year that are having an ongoing (and very frustrating) impact on my strength training.
However, as the medics told me, I can either sit down and whinge for the rest of my life or I can work to protect my spine. That includes building my core muscles up for protection and adapting my strength training to take my spine into account – being careful around things like trap bars and deadlifts which have been such a problem for a while. So that’s what I’ll do.
In the end it comes down to that conversation with your 80 year-old self again doesn’t it? Imagine it’s a rainy Thursday morning in January and ask her what she’d rather do that day – spend hours waiting for a hospital appointment or go to the gym and lift a few weights with new buddies and then have a coffee with them afterwards. At the beginning starting something new like this is about discipline and consistency but soon your body starts to appreciate it and you’ll find it craves the endorphins after about six weeks.
So that’s as much of a note to self as well as you. It’s the only one of the bumps in the road from last year that I have any control over.
So looking back at 2025, those were my downs – I talk about them here because so often people tell me that it helps them to feel less alone. Next week I’ll focus on the ups which will give me a chance to tell you about some of the things I didn’t have a chance to cover at the end of last year. In the meantime I don’t want to leave you on a negative so here’s a little recap of Christmas moments.
Looking back at 2025 – Christmas recap
It was so good to have the boys home for such a long stretch – both the eldest and middle one were back for nearly three weeks. I find that when we first come back together from our different worlds we're a bit like an engine that's been dismantled and put back together, it takes a few days for us to start running smoothly as a unit. When we do though it's as if nothing's changed. I sensed the boys were relieved to leave adult life behind for a while and regress so they threw themselves into all of our old traditions. I didn't take enough photos but here's the village carol service and it was a happy moment for me looking out and seeing my family sitting with my friend Nicky's all together over two pews.
And do you know what – I think we were actually quite good this year. We're just a group of villagers who get together and practice from the beginning of November so the standards aren't high but we really enjoy it. Luckily they also let me set the dress code… hence the red!
This was popping out to the farm shop with the eldest to buy the Christmas cheeses and say hello to the cows.
A chilly Christmas Eve before the panto with Grandma in good spirits (I must get those red trousers shortened slightly)…
Waiting for the show to begin.
They still indulge me by leaving treats for Santa – and Santa is always pleased when he finds them on his way upstairs!
Christmas Day just before we sat down to lunch – my sous chef is sporting his apron (and I should clarify that he's wearing a Santa hat, he hasn't suddenly gone white haired!). We played games until long after midnight and the rest of the family couldn't believe M-I-L stayed awake and joined in for so long.
Sale shopping on the afternoon of New Year's Eve with these two in Newcastle, it's so lovely watching them enjoy having their own spending power – a novelty after all of the student years (and a huge relief to my purse!).
And later on we all went to Howaymanay on the Quayside. It was bitterly cold and I'm so glad I took this picture of the middle one's lovely Geordie girlfriend to show you. She had at least acknowledged the freezing temperatures by wearing a coat for once – but she still persisted with bare feet and heels!
The new year rang in with a caller and Scottish Country Dancing – we didn't have a clue what we were doing but it was heartening to see the boys whirling around with the rest of the crowd along with us. We were so caught up in it that this is the only photo I have. There couldn't have been a friendlier place to welcome 2026.
I do miss them when they're gone. While they're at home it's like living with big, warm bears who spark off each other and the house is full of laughter. Real life is circling again though, the eldest went back to London on Monday and we take the middle one to the airport in the early hours of tomorrow morning. We'll all slide back into our own worlds until Easter but I feel my bucket of family love is full enough to sustain me in the meantime.
Midlifechic opportunities 2026
For now though there are new things to look forward to and some of them involve you. This is what we have ahead – why don’t you join us for some of it?
Midlifechic Retreat March 26
As a result of something unfortunate happening one of our attendees has had to let her place on the March retreat go which means we have an opening (27th – 29th March). Sharon and I spent a lovely morning at the hotel on Tuesday which was looking particularly pretty in the snow. We were finalising the details for our January session and we've gone from feeling nervous to being really excited about it.
If you've started the year feeling a bit unsure about what you want from your future, now is the time to come along with seventeen new friends and make a plan. In our talks we're hoping to challenge you and bring up a few things you may not have considered. Then we'll be giving you plenty of time to work in groups and on your own to develop a picture of what it is you really want from this next stage of your life. Because you don't want to let it slip by. Our challenge to you is this:
"What if the last thought you have when your life comes to an end is that you didn't do enough living while you could?"
This is the very last place available. We may run more retreats in 2027 but this year is already turning out to be busier than I anticipated and we're only one week in. For all of the details and to book, click here.
Midlifechic Retreat January
Just a reminder to you all that you were sent an email on 18th December with homework to do and I can see who’s opened it… and who hasn’t!
Please have a look at it – we’ll be kicking off with the thoughts you’ve prepared so you won’t get as much out of it if you haven’t done it.
Come and learn salsa with us in September
Our September trip to Colombia is feeling much nearer now that we're in 2026. We have a lovely band of readers ready to go but there are still a few spaces if you'd like to join us. Remember what I said about dancing? It's the best way to go out, have fun, make friends and keep fit. You might even find you lose weight – I came home 6lbs lighter last March! There's nowhere better to do it than in Colombia where people even dance salsa when they're waiting at the supermarket checkout, it's in their blood.
And now that we've had time to compare I can definitely say that going to classes in the UK is nothing like the immersive course. We don't enjoy it much and in fact we haven't been since July because of Mal's back injury followed by my frozen shoulder and just a general reluctance. The problem is that you spend an hour learning a few moves but then you've forgotten them by the following week.
We came back from Medellin with a routine that we still stick to if we go to a salsa night or if a song with the right beat comes on at a party and we can even throw it into our disco too.
So why don't you take this chance to come with us? Have an adventure, discover Medellin – there's all of the history, nature and coffee farming as well as the music and culture too. You'll be with a group that you know you'll have lots in common with – you've seen how Midlifechic events go. It's open to solo travellers, couples and people travelling with a friend or relative.
If you're interested, here's a link to the reader Zoom meeting that we held with David from Somoloco last spring which should tell you everything you want to know. Booking details are here. Go on – be brave, let's have an adventure together.
Stay at our flat in Newcastle
As I've already mentioned, we have a busy few months ahead and it means that we won't be able to get over to our flat in Newcastle in February or March. We hate having it standing empty so we're running the same offer that we did last year – if you book two nights we'll give you the third one free (the Sunday night if you're booking over the weekend).
When you book we'll send you our new 'Insider's Guide to Newcastle' which gives you our personal lowdown of where to go and what to do so you can be sure of a good time. The people who've used it so far have told us that it's made all the difference to their weekend. As you know it's our special place so we only let the flat out to family, friends and you, our trusted readers. Having you there helps us to keep it warm and serviced when we can't go. And we feel as though we're doing our bit for our favourite city, introducing new people to the very many joys to be had there.
You'll find all the details and availability of our Baltic Nest here. Just mention the offer to Mal when he contacts you to confirm your reservation.
Mini Birmingham Get Together
Lots of you know Mary-Katherine, one of our most regular and bubbly commenters who lives in America. I feel extremely honoured that she is travelling all the way over to my home territory for the January Retreat. She’s also meeting up with other Midlifechic readers while she’s here. Some of you will remember Elaine who organised our Birmingham event last summer. She’s going to give Mary-Katherine a guided tour of her city and they would like to invite anyone else to join them for dinner on Monday 9th February. I won’t be there because it’s the night before our Silver Wedding Anniversary so Mal and I are away – but it’s a lovely opportunity for anyone else to have a chat and a few laughs. If you’d like to go along, let Elaine know at edc0111@hotmail.co.uk and she’ll fill you in.
By the way if you’re undecided about Colombia, Mary-Katherine will be coming to learn salsa with us too – she’s my new hot ticket!
And that’s been a long post – I’ve missed you. Here’s to another year together, who knows what it will bring.
