Last weekend I completed another of my 50 before I am 50. I ate in a Michelin Starred Restaurant. The restaurant in question was Wilson’s in Bristol, and I went there with my partner to celebrate one of her friend’s birthday.
Sadly, I’m not Jay Rayner, and I do not have the vocabulary to accurately explain the food, except to say it was delicious. The six course tasting menu was using freshly grown herbs and vegetables from it’s own two acre farm. Really, they were the stars of the show – whilst there were fish and meat that were the main element of the dish, in reality the flavourful herbs were what made it a bit special.
I think the thing for me was I was expecting to be disappointed. I don’t know why. Naturally pessimistic – like you wait your life to see a band only to be terrible. In reality it was excellent. 6 decent portions of food, full of flavour, and also some great non alcoholic mocktails that – whilst not paired with the dishes – were great.
I did the wanky thing and take photos of all the food which are below.
Tomato and lemon verbena. Not sure what a verbena is.This is the Strawberry Soda, probably my favourite drink of the eveningThis was served with the bread course, not sure what these were. Mackerel and dill on a seaweed cracker were the green onesThe bread course, with butter….…and a herby tahini like thing. It was deliciousThis was a gooseberry and chamomile cocktailSea bass, gooseberry, thai basil and smoked creme freche. This was my favourite dish of the dayDry aged trout with courgettes in a horseradish sauce and a chili buttermilky thingFig leaf coktailGuinea fowl, florence onion and carrotsFarm herbs and a mirangue. The puddings were quite herby which worked in this case I thought.Cherries, Basil & Chocolate – probably my least favourite dish, could have done without the basilPetits Fours with chocolate and pumpkin fudgy things and a posh fruit pastille.
Today, I’m one year sober. Still feels weird to write that.
I’d love to say I planned for it. I didn’t. I had some (what has turned out since) minor health issues that I misinterpreted as major issues and told myself I’d stop drinking for a while. It wasn’t even planned because I missed Alcohol Awareness Week by one week.
I’m not going to present a “holier-than-thou” update on being sober for that length of time. In truth, I’m not arsed if other people drink. Please. Do drink around me. Really not arsed.
I have dropped about 20kg in the past year. I’ve still about 10 more to go.
I’m also not going to say that my health got immediately better. It didn’t. Sure the weight dropped but it took me 9 months before I began to feel noticeably better. I slept so badly for so long. Sleeping is still varied. I can’t guarantee a good night sleep, but I’m usually pretty good.
I’m not going to talk about how tough it was. In all honesty, I found it straightforward, being able to count on one hand the times I’ve missed having a drink. Usually in places that don’t have a non-alcoholic offering: stadiums in the UK are the worst for this.
I’m not going to talk about how I’m never touching alcohol again. I probably will. I probably have. I’ve had a few tiramisus that was going spare on holiday for example.
Said bastion of health now sees me waking up at ungodly hours of the morning.
I’m also not going to talk about how I’m the bastion of health now. The amount of ice cream I’ve eaten in the last year has shot up. My diet is better mind, but short of eating a lot less takeaways it’s not changed much. I still enjoy a full English, and can polish off a tub of Pringles depressingly easily.
I’m not going to say how supportive everybody’s been. I’ve drifted from a few people because of it.
Nevertheless. One year down. Feels it’s worth a celebration. You do lose things, but you learn to appreciate other things. I don’t miss the beer portal, for example.
A calm morning in Criccieth
I also appreciated the drive to Ruthin first thing in the morning on Christmas Day to do a Parkrun when the world was dead. The coffee I shared with my girlfriend in a car park van at 8:30am in Criccieth the day my brother got married (and 10 minutes before I fell in a pothole and twisted my ankle). Being at Pennington Flash at 8am to see the world wake up with a bacon butty.
Those are the moments I appreciate. Calm, peaceful moments for reflection where you truly get to appreciate the world in a way other folks may not. It feels like you’ve more hours in a day.
A bit of extra life.
Also, I’ve developed a craving for Salt & Vinegar crisps. Don’t know why.
My latest game – Gone Fission! – has been released and is available to play on itch.io.
How To Play
⬅️⬆️⬇️➡️ – move cursor
❎ (mapped to X/C on browser) – place atom
🅾️ (mapped to Z/V on browser) – next player (2+ human players only).
The goal is to eliminate all other players from the game by causing chain reactions of 4 or more atoms. Probably the game is best explained in animated gif form.
You can play up to 4 players local multiplayer, or you can play with up to 3 computer opponents with 3 different difficulties.
Why I Made It
Been a real labour of love this game, working away on it – as it was the first game I largely developed in public. Working on it publicly when for many years a lot of my work has been behind NDA’s has been equal parts refreshing and terrifying: I’ve had a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to showing off my work, but learning things like particle engines and programming my own difficulty curves has been rewarding. In the world where AI slop seems to be king, humanly crafting something with love for other people’s enjoyment does feel great.
Anyway, would love for you to play it and see what you think. You can play it in browser and made the PICO-8 cartridge free (which means you can play it on retro devices such as the Anbernic). Donations of $2 or more means you get the executable to play on devices such as your Steam Deck. If you do like it, please share my Itch.io page with details on the game on, and leave a review and a comment: it really helps the algorithm.
It’s fair to say that my fortieth trip around the sun was overly quite eventful, and I’m in a very different place to where I was on my 40th blog post, in every sense of the word.
July of 2024 my world was largely turned upside down and saw huge changes. After years of abusing my body with alcohol and crap food I was severely overweight and was diagnosed with raised blood pressure. I needed to make lifestyle changes. I began running (read my Couch to 5k App experience here), knocked booze on the head and generally decided to take better care of myself. I’ve been sober for around 7 months, and in that time I’ve dropped 3 stone in weight (about 20kg). As I write this in mid February I’ve absolutely flatlined with my weight loss. I am still larger than I should be, but a lot better than I was.
My weight loss over the last 7 months
Everybody says I should feel better about it but…I think I do? It’s self doubt creeping in a bit. I worry about my blood pressure and said worry raises my blood pressure. Turns out I have the worst white coat syndrome. I also bought a Garmin which has both been incredibly useful and a pain in the arse. Garmin basically is telling me on a daily basis that I’m a rather pathetic human being. Seriously. I watched 3 episodes of The Traitors back to back and my stress levels went through the roof. Similarly to my blood pressure being raised when I worry about my blood pressure, Garmin’s sleep tracking is single handedly the one thing that prevents me from having a good night’s sleep. So I only wear it during the day. Cracking for tracking my running, mind.
Yes. Running. Running has become a new hobby, and I love seeing the world through the eyes of a Parkrun. Seeing the world on a Saturday morning before folks get up has been a joy. I also did the Aintree 5k just before Christmas, and I’m happy with the time. I don’t think I miss alcohol really. I think I can count on one hand the number of days I can say I’ve missed the booze. Usually when I’m in a place that doesn’t have a non-alcoholic beer option is the worst. So far, the worst offenders are the football stadiums and gig venues in the UK, and the entire country of Italy.
Away from health stuff, one thing I have done lots of is travelling. This year I managed to go to Barbados, United States, Germany (Berlin and Dusseldorf), Romania (twice), Italy, Austria and Poland. Within the UK I’ve made significant trips to London, Cardiff and Blackpool. A lot more travel has been outside of the UK so I’m fortunate in that regard. Barbados and the United States was to see the Cricket World Cup (I was in the stadium when USA beat Pakistan), and the Germany trip was tied with the London trip, in that I went to AEW All In (watching an excellent Brian Danielson vs Swerve Strickland match) and Bash in Berlin a week later. Just a proper fun old school wrestling weekend. Blackpool was for Play Expo, which is one of my favourite weekends of the year.
The rest of the travel have been due to another large change in my life. For the first time since 2017 I’m no longer single. My partner doesn’t live in the UK, so we’ve been trying to meet up in easy/cheap/convenient locations every few weeks. So far it’s working pretty well, so please keep your fingers crossed. Right now as I hit publish I’m being whisked away for a evening or two somewhere close to Bucharest, I can’t wait! She’s been a massive rock and – along with 2 other people – been the constant source of strength with my health issues last July.
Work wise 2024/25 has been consistent. Largely one or two clients have kept me busy, which has meant I’ve not really had to look for work. However, that is coming to a change in the next few months, and I’m actively looking for projects now, so if you do need a WordPress developer, please do get in touch.
Side projects wise they’ve been ticking along. All Rumble Stats has been great, albeit it’s incredibly seasonal. A month or so of incredible traffic and then a baseline of a couple of hundred visits a month. It was nice to be cited in 411 Mania’s website which was a nice traffic bump. I’ve got an idea which I need to get on in Q3 which will hopefully work well. Retro Garden and Drive in Cinemas are also doing okay. Retro Garden it’s getting to a nice place where I can turn articles out pretty quickly, so looking to expand that. I’ve also been working on the shop as well which is doing well. Drive in Cinemas is still doing well. They’re pretty much my three sites at the moment.
Being able to play a game I made on a handheld system was a bit of a highlight.
I picked up video game development as a hobby, and I’ve made a number of video games. MonoScale, Frosty’s Snowed Under and Mari Lwyd’s Festive Rap Battle were the games I made this year. They were all done for Game Jams (read about the 1-Bit Game Jam and Pico-8 Advent Calendar Game Jam entries in those links). I’m playing around with another game (which I’ve been sharing on BlueSky). I think I’ve a pipeline of about 3 or 4 games I want to build. Whether they get done this year I’m not sure, but it’s something I’m keen on exploring.
Cricket was a bit of a nothing season, but training for the new season has started well (still bowling with a tendency of bowling leg side). Still the Sponsorship Secretary of Earlestown Cricket Club.
Twitch Streaming has been up and down. I begin in earnest and then get bored. I have been able to stick to somewhat of a schedule on Sundays (it helps not drinking to be fair), and also been streaming my game development stuff. They have been popular. I am looking to do more of those!
I’m a wee bit behind on my 50 before I’m 50, but I’ve ticked 2 off. I finally finished that list of 50 things too!
My 40th year feels like potentially one of the most significant years of my life. It had it’s fair share of challenges, but it feels like things are beginning to solidify and crystallise in some sort of place as I continue the next phase of my life.
Which seems rather dramatic when I say that.
And now the yearly comparison!
As you all love it so much. Here’s my updated comparison with you know who.
Rhys (With a Spoon)
Reese Witherspoon
Age
Nearly 41 (Up 1)
Nearly 49 (Up 1)
Oscars (Nominated)
0 – No Change (0 – No Change)
1 – No Change (2 – No Change)
Books Written
1 (No Change)
4 (No Change)
Marriages
0 (No Change)
2 (No Change)
Children
0 (No Change)
3 (No Change)
WordPress Plugins Written & On the WordPress Repository
I love goals, I love the “whooshing” sound they make as they pass me by.
So last year I made a bunch of goals – you can read about them here – and I’m happy to say there has been a dismal failure. The year of 2024, as mentioned on my Dwi’n Rhys roundup, was a bit of a “good smack in the mouth”, as my plans changed post about February, meaning my time was largely booked up on other projects. So of the 6 tasks I had, I achieved a grand total of 1 of them. Let’s look at these.
Get Back into Public Speaking – Failure I didn’t achieve this, with no even remote chance to do it. Although events are beginning to start up again, being so busy meant I didn’t have time to even think about a talk. There was only one event I even remotely thought about applying for, and to be honest as soon as I decided to go to the Cricket World Cup instead, I gave up on this.
Get at least 2 months income of £30 or more not from revenue streams that exist for me (Adsense, Twitch, Plugin Sales or Web Development Work)– Failure (albeit working towards this) I do now have a couple more revenue streams, but they aren’t £30 a month yet. Nevertheless it is a failure, alas.
Look at the Winwar Media Site with Pride – Failure It is still a mess. Hopefully will get this done this year.
Reconnect with the WordPress folk I enjoy spending time with – Success! 🎉 We did it! Thanks to WP Leeds returning and (more importantly) MWUG returning – with me as a Co-organiser, I saw a lot more of the WordPress community in 2024, and probably more than every other year. Come to the next one!
Take a catch at cricket – Failure (but succeeded elsewhere) my season was odd with cricket. With health issues and my role in the team changing, I didn’t really feel like I contributed much. Alas, my best chance to take a catch in cricket (a position at slip) I dropped and I never really got an opportunity post that. Nevertheless, I did manage to debut for the first team, which was a nice feeling.
Score 23 in a game of cricket – Failure yeah I had a bad season through a lack of confidence and some health issues. We go again.
So of the 6 goals I had, I had success in one of them! Oh well. It wasn’t that 2024 wasn’t bad, it was good! Just ended up doing something totally different.
What of 2025? Well, here are my goals for this year.
Professional Goals
I’m going to keep this short, as I don’t know how many times I can rewrite it, but get back into public speaking and finally rebuild Winwar Media to my liking are my goals for 2025.
I know I say this every year, but this year there’s a chance to do more public speaking (from February) and a bit of time towards the middle of the year, I should be able to build a new version. So those two are still on my list. I’ll add one more to the list.
Sing about my Work More
So you may be able to read between the lines and gather that – as things stand – work may be a bit quieter this year (change that!), one thing that kind of held me back was that I didn’t sing about my work much.
I’ve thought about this and I want to add a “Case Studies” section on Dwi’n Rhys, as a lot of my work when starting out was White Labelled and NDA’d so I didn’t have the need to talk about it. Now? People come direct, and a couple of case studies would be great on my professional sites. Not least because it’ll mean I don’t have to rewrite it whenever somebody asks to see my portfolio! So whilst I don’t thik I’ll get a lot of work from it, there’s every chance it’ll save me time.
Personal Goals
First a scary goal, but my 34 and a half minute 5k was done towards the end of the year, and my new goal is to run a sub 30 minute 5k. I haven’t got anywhere near my 34:30 in my 5ks since then, but once the weather gets a bit better I’m going to set up Runna to work towards this goal.
Secondly, I’d like to continue my weight loss goal. I’ve got a goal here so don’t want to make it public but nevertheless I wanted to include it, so I’ll let you know when I hit it!
Finally, I’d like to attend a Game Dev meetup. I’m getting more and more into game development, so I’m keen to in 2025 attend one, just to meet a few people and get a few ideas and inspiration for my games.
And Now Something New…
Somebody I’ve followed for years – Jess Rose – posted something wonderful on Bluesky that I’m going to do going forward.
A beautiful soul on Twitter gave me an idea that improved my life: replace new years resolutions with a bingo card of goals you want to try and do over the yearIt's great for goal setting, motivation, it lets you see your progress throughout the year and I give myself a little treat w each bingo🎁
I included 3 more goals – achieve 3 from my “50 before I’m 50” list – to generate a 9 by 9 card.
Like Jess, I’m also setting myself up with treats as and when I achieve these goals – 3 for when I complete 1 line, 3 bigger ones when I achieve a cross, and 2 mahoosive if I achieve 2 lines and a diagonal. Should I complete the grid I’ll treat myself to a Playstation 5. I’ve generated a bingo card using this Bingo Card Generator, clicked on the link to generate a random bingo card, and included it below.
There are a couple of tough corners, but I think it’s manageable. I think it could be fun to find out! So those are my goals for 2025, let’s see how many I achieve.
