100 GOOD THINGS FROM 2024

Happy New Year, all. I hope 2025 has been kind to you thus far. I wasn’t going to write this list because 2024 was mostly really shit. There’s much of it that I can hardly even remember, thanks to being catastrophically burnt out and grieving from living with undiagnosed ADHD and Autism for 38 years and being wrongly medicated for mental disorders I don’t even have. But I talked myself into doing it, knowing I’d bitterly regret it if I didn’t, and if there’s something I don’t need more of it’s regret.

*The featured image is a photo captured by Kári Pálsson as I was photographing his girlfriend Giorgia Sottotetti as she lay naked among moss covered lava at Snaefellsnes peninsula.

1. Having a poem published in Issue 2 of Clarion, a magazine founded by the author of Sometimes a Wild God, Tom Hirons.
2. My blog, A Nordic Fever being featured in Mslexia.
3. Finally finishing my poetry collection Waiting For Gryla after a very long, very tedious, very soul-smashing battle with perfectionism and the idea that a collection needs to be a certain length. (I’m not completely happy with it, even after culling many poems that weren’t pulling their weight, but I don’t know if I ever will be. It needs to be out there so I can move on with other projects.)
4. 12 Hours Of Relaxing Fireplace Sounds. It helped me concentrate better than almost anything else.
5. Collaborating with my friends at the independent and experimental publishing house HYLDYR, an honour beyond my wildest imaginings. I contributed photography for their publications The Comparative Hávamál and The Comparative Völuspá.
6. Performing at the very first book festival at Buster Ancient Farm, thanks to my wildly talented friend (and founder of the festival!) the author Sofie Draheim AKA Draugaskald.
7. Creating art in Snæfellsnes with my friends and muses Giorgia Sottotetti and Clare Mulley.
8. Being ecstatically happy for my friend Kári Pálsson who published a very special book with HYLDYR.
9. KEX (probably my favourite Swedish chocolate bar) randomly turning up in Lidl in the UK when I really needed cheering up.
10. Playing a part in throwing the Tories out.
11. Seeing the aurora borealis several times. 
12. The Office (US).
13. Portraits of me appearing in Dark Femininity by Necroshorns. (Prints from our collaboration will be available again soon.)
14. Celebrating midsummer in Sweden with Finnbjörn, Saga and my English and Swedish family.
15. Feeling weirdly (though understandably) aroused by the Hitra Man at NTNU Museum in Trondheim.
16. Photos I shot of Sólstafir in Reykjavik being used in promotion for their latest album.
17. Randomly meeting the bedazzling Nona Limmen at Andkristni in Reykjavik.
18. Receiving a new lopapeysa for Christmas (knitted by Finnbjörn’s mum) after losing the one she knitted me for last Christmas at Manchester Airport. (You have to be a special kind of evil not to hand in a lost knitted jumper.)
19. Leather boots that don’t need any breaking in.
20. Taking Saga to the cinema for the first time.
21. Carving a turnip at Halloween and that feeling of accomplishment that comes with it because carving turnips is fucking hard.
22. Morning cups of tea made by Finnbjörn.
23. Feeling blissed out for my friend Giorgia and her successful venture into pottery. Also the Jólakötturinn magnet she gifted me for Christmas (which currently holds up a postcard I sent from Iceland on my first visit there in 2011).
24. Investing in the print version of Mslexia again after reading it digitally for several years.
25. This piece of advice and my motto for 2025: TAKE MESSY ACTION.
26. Getting possessions back from an ex including a Princess Tuvstarr candle holder, a camera lens and a glass polar bear.
27. Swedish trains – clean, efficient, spacious, mostly empty, hot drinks and food always available.
28. Anatomy of a Fall. Stupendous film.
29. My friend Ian coming back from his first trip to Sweden and telling me he ‘gets it’ and understands why I miss it so. (I rarely feel genuinely understood, so this was very special.)
30. A new pill box that can hold a month’s supply of medication and comes in its own protective box, making pill spillages a thing of the past.
31. Packing cubes. I’m still learning to use them effectively, but they’re great.
32. Going on a flight and having the row of seats entirely to myself.
33. Reading at the launch of Clarion 2 alongside very well-established poets.
34. Syrup in tea. (Thanks Giorgia!)
35. My younger brother adopting a kitten which he found abandoned in a bucket.
36. Poetry workshops led by Tom Hirons.
37. Brunost.
38. Meeting Sofie Draheim for the first time after being buddies online for ages.
39. Rye bread made by Finnbjörn’s mum.
40. The blizzard which raged as I was leaving Iceland in December. (I was elated and simultaneously devastated because I didn’t want to be driving to the airport in it but out taking photos.)
41. Going to a physio for my back pain and getting probably the best massage of my life.
42. Weighted blankets.
43. Re-reading the Little House on the Prairie book series.
44. Introducing Saga to Pettson and Findus.
45. Eating princess torte in a café in Gothenburg.
46. Meeting Lauren Morton, golden-haired author of the sublime story collection Oaken Tongue.
47. Uniqlo. Their dresses have pockets.
48. Roadtripping around the South of Iceland with Finnbjörn.
49. Going with Finnbjörn to see Sigur Rós perform with a full orchestra at Harpa.
50. Visiting Mother Shipton’s Cave.
51. Saga taking herself up to bed early on Christmas Eve.
52. Gossip Collar using my photography.
53. Drinking Yorkshire Gold for the first time and resolving to never go back to ‘ordinary’ Yorkshire Tea.
54. Getting up close to a Witch Post at Ryedale Folk Museum.  
55. Hester Aspland’s wondrous art.
56. Climbing trees dressed as a wraith to be photographed by @eyeswideshut
57. Spending the night in an Iron Age roundhouse around a blazing fire at Butser Ancient farm in the company of artists and writers I’ve admired for years.
58. The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston. I have little patience for novels at the moment, but this one locked me in.
59. Shooting with Striplab for the second time and stretching way out of my comfort zone.
60. Finding lots of excellent ADHD podcasts (such as The ADHD Woman’s Wellbeing Podcast, Women & ADHD and The Neurodivergent Woman) which have helped me better understand myself and the chaos that has been and still is my life.
61. A Thousand Feasts by Nigel Slater. The ultimate in comfort reading.
62. Saga’s rendition of The House of Bamboo by Andy Williams.
63. This quote: ‘Go to the limits of your longing.’ – Rainer Maria Rilke.
64. Mr Coopers Coffee House and their enormous pastries.
65. HWAET! zine and the fabulous couple who create it.
66. Receiving the most exquisite Black Rabbit of Inle patch by Art of Maquenda as a gift from my friend Daryl.
67. Unquiet Things – one of the few blogs capable of holding my attention.
68. Interview with the Vampire the TV series – I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would and Sam Reid makes a very sexy Lestat.
69. Saga’s belly laughs.
70. Photoshooting in caves with my friend Dia of the band Svartthoka.
71. Learning the moles on my face aren’t cancerous.
72. Wild by Jay Griffiths coming back to me after ten years in Norway.
73. Vegan Laufabrauð. (I dare say it tastes better than the non-vegan variety.)
74. Reading The Grinch with Saga.
75. This quote: ‘…guard your yes with your life.’ – Rene Brooks.
76. Re-buying the eco-poetry anthology Earth Shattering after an ex threw away my first copy.
77. Interviewing a museum guide at my favourite museum in all of Iceland – The Skógar Folk Museum.
78. This quote: ‘The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little.’ – Jon Kabat-Zinn.
79. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. (The Netflix show is also excellent.)
80. The calm ashwagandha bestows on me.
81. Raiding second hand stores in Cologne and finding several German folk dresses.
82. Watching Tabby McTat: The Animated Adventure with Saga and enjoying it more than her.
83. Cry of the Wild by Charles Forster—a fucking devastating, fucking beautiful, fucking urgent book.
84. Playing Lego with Saga.
85. Saga wild swimming at Westerdale in the North York Moors where I used to wild swim as a kid.
86. Songs & Callings by Jonna Jinton.
87. Being chosen to be a part of Go Sollefteå hosted by Kalle Flodin, where I got to go further North in Sweden than I’d ever been before (I was offered a lift from Stockholm all the way to Sollefteå by Pernilla Einarson, an influential Swedish knitter!) and meet some of the most inspiring, funny and interesting folk. I’m hoping to get back to Sollefteå soon for more than a few days.
88. Listening to Hælið on repeat for hours.
89. Having Trondheim Folk Museum more or less to myself for a day.
90. This quote: ‘Forgive yourself. Then ask, ‘what’s next?’ – Cal Newport.
91. This: ‘Don’t be afraid of writing rubbish.’ Because I don’t remind myself nearly as often as I should that shitty first drafts are necessary if I’m ever going to create anything new.  
92. Saga’s fascination with the moon and her understanding of its cycles.
93. Buying Christmas decorations I’d had my eye on at half price a few days after the event itself and smugly hanging them up because my decorations stay up well into January.
94. Reykjavik Fog. Like London Fog but served in Reykjavik.
95. Iceland: In Other Words. An exquisite, experimental zine I picked up from a zine fair in Reykjavik.
96. Losing track of time in a second-hand book shop in Liverpool. (Then leaving with a massive anthology of mountain poetry and a book about the childhood of Charles Eastman.)
97. Picking Saga up from school and her shouting ‘MUMMY!’ and running into my arms.
98. Receiving a shuttle loom from my Secret Santa. And a Moomin colouring book.
99. Coming home feeling very overstimulated and sitting down with a weighted blanket, a cup of tea and a book.
100. The euphoric feeling when I’ve finished a blog post and am happy with it.