I'm fun in small doses

Happy New Year awesome person,

Winter Nostalgia #

It's inevitable. 2024 is behind us and 2025 is ahead. How strange is that? I mean, 2025? Twenty Twenty Five?!?! No way. I have this vivid memory of watching the fireworks shooting off Sydney Harbour Bridge to kick off the new Millennium, followed by a repeat every hour on the hour, from the next time zone. I know, I know, technically it was a year early, but we didn't care then and I don't care now. No matter what, there's no way that all happened a quarter century ago. I refuse to believe it. It's a dirty trick brought on by those darn Tories, I tells ya.

I was intensely nostalgic this holiday season. We've been away from 'home', meaning Saskatchewan, for over five years now and I surely miss it. In small doses. Like this Christmas, when friends and family sent me photos of clear blue skies and the crispest, brightest, whitest snow and stands of birch trees all covered in sparkly hoar frost. Definitely a white Christmas back home. Gorgeous. It was also -32C the week before this festive beauty; only my sister sends me those texts.

We had our fun on the coast, for sure. The sun was out in force on Christmas Eve so Cindy and I went for a hike to Ross Bay, Gonzales Beach and then on the our 'height of land', the lookout at Walbran Park in Oak Bay. The tide was in and more storms were forecast, so there was literally no beach, only water and stacks of massive driftwood logs which have been gathering and crashing in and flipping their driftwood buddies (and one sailboat) higher and higher up the retaining walls.

But just like a prairie cold snap, it didn't last. The sun went behind clouds and the tides went out. We went back to Ross Bay on Boxing Day and the beach was back. Most of the logs were floating in the bay, bobbing along, looking for the the next party. But my goodness, there were a lot of logs. I don't think a boat of any size dared venture into the bay until these wooden ne'er-do-wells had dispersed.

Like I say, I'm nostalgic. I needed the proper Christmas food this year and by George I indulged. I've eaten all Cindy's Christmas cookies, both my share and, thanks to the mail strike, the niece's and nephew's share too. (She's sending fresh this week.) Cin went to the Ukrainian hall sale for frozen perogies and we found two excellent fruitcakes at the holiday markets. Cin doesn't even like fruitcake, so I've eaten two full cakes by myself. We had our annual splurge on chip dip for New Year's Eve and I had new flannel pyjama pants to lounge in. I'll deal with a belt later.

But the peak of winter nostalgia was when Cindy and I went skating. The City rinks here have skate rentals, both hockey skates and figure skates and they're proper leather ones too. Incredible. So we laced 'em up and headed out. Scariest thing I did in 2024, if I'm honest. At the very least, it's been 10 years since I've been on skates and it took a few laps for the muscle memory to kick in. Not exactly 'like riding a bike.' They have a big bin of helmets and I really should've worn one, if only for the big step down to ice level, but my prairie vanity won out.

After 10 minutes or so, I was back in the groove and loving every second, dodging little kids and beginners and those highly unpredictable hand-holding couples with a tiny bit of speed and grace. I even did a cross over! Like all nostalgia, it was definitely better in my imagination than to any impartial observer, but I don't care. It was brilliant and I can't wait to go back. I just hope we go in the opposite direction next time. The practice of reversing direction every 20-30 minutes hasn't crossed the Rocky Mountains, so we spent 45 minutes turning left. Ah well.

I'm fun in small doses #

2024 was my Year of the Project it seems. I've done work that I'm really proud of, but in short bursts.

The big one is the Bakery Leadership Circle a leadership and change program for bakery owners and senior leaders. I launched it back in February with my friend Karen of the BBGA and it's been awesome. Ever since I took the altMBA in 2017 and was asked to coach that program, I wanted to do something similar but specifically for bakery owners. As I've learned more and grown and changed over the years, my ideas have changed too, and all this has gone into the Leadership Circle. We ran two sessions this year and have already announced a session for Spring 2025. I can't wait to meet the new cohort of bakers.

I say "small doses" because, even though the BLC took most of my creative time this year, the Circle only meets once per week. A smaller dose, but just as fun, was filling in as a 'guest baker' back at Union Pacific in November. Kelley and Lindsay needed a vacation and they didn't want to close and leave the crew hanging, so I did the baking for them for two weeks. It was so much fun, dancing the dance of a brief but active production schedule again. And I got to work with the most incredible trio of young, smart, fun cooks after my morning bake was done. There's nothing better than a team that works well together.

An even smaller dose that rewarded me with fresh pizza, was a baker meetup in September by the Baking Association of Canada. I got to moderate a panel discussion with some incredible local bakery owners, which was a ton of fun. And then we ate pizza. Even better.

Even my social time is best in small doses. I have a weekly 'muffin meetup' with local stamp collectors at a nearby rec centre. 90 minutes, some good visiting, a bit of show and tell, then I'm good for a week. They let me design a poster for their quarterly stamp shows which only caused a minor brouhaha; maybe that was too big of a dose of the ol' Mark magic.

My Year's Best Lists #

It's been ages since I shared some fun finds with you, so here's a recap of the best things I saw this year. There's a very strong British tinge to these recommendations, but all are available around the world:

Best Podcast that isn't my own #

I'm cheating right off the bat. I've got two to share, both from the same umbrella company.

I started listening to The Rest is Entertainment because I love Marina Hyde's columns for the Guardian. She and the multi talented Richard Osman share secrets about the ins and outs of show business every week. I got hooked when they started arguing about the right way to sort their books.

The Rest of Entertainment is fun, but I'm totally hooked on The Rest is History. Wow! Two historians telling wildly entertaining stories for over an hour each week. And some of the series span 6 episodes or more. Want five hours on the French Revolution? The beginnings of World War I? Horatio Nelson? The 1968 US Presidential Election? Yes! Yes you really do. This podcast is excellent. I started with the 1968 election series right after the 2024 results sunk in and I started finding some perspective. Now I'm learning about the rise of Nazism and it's scaring the bejesus out of me. Seriously, this is a good show.

TV Show of the Year #

It's got to be the Great Pottery Throw Down. We learned about it through Cindy's mom and sister (the original series is on BritBox in Canada, and the Canadian version is on CBC.) We've watched three full series so far, I read Keith's autobiography (he's one of the judges), a spin off series where Keith and his partner Marj renovate an historic chapel in Wales, and I even signed up for a pottery class at our local community centre.

I love a hand made coffee mug, but I never really appreciated the colour, beauty and diversity of ceramics until we started watching this show. Plus, it's a kind, gentle, fun type of competition show, where you can enjoy the characters and almost all the tears are tears of joy. Well worth seeking out.

Guilty Pleasure TV Show of the Year #

That would be BBC2's Gardener's World. Now that I live in a climate that is somewhat like the UK, the show matches up with our seasons week by week. The show is slow, quiet, informative, romantic, nostalgic and wonderful. I skip past some of the grand garden tours but linger on Monty Don pottering about in own garden. This is the show that got me appreciating flowers and other plants one cannot eat.

I call it a guilty pleasure because, like my stamps, Gardener's World is not Cindy's cup of tea. Something about Monty's suspenders, or the tedium. I'm not sure. So I watch it alone, with my headphones on.

Movies of the Year #

Something new, something old. Something local, something from away. Those are my two movies of the year.

New, from here: Singing Back the Buffalo is a documentary about the reintroduction of wild buffalo across the North American prairies and about the powerful relationship between Indigenous people and their buffalo relatives. I grew up in a city that proudly claimed the name 'Pile of Bones' to celebrate the slaughter in the 1880's, so this movie hit me hard. Beautifully shot, gloriously hopeful. Please seek it out.

Old, from away: Cindy and I watched the remastered, restored version of Stop Making Sense in the theatre. I'd only ever seen it on VHS before and it remains the best music concert film I've ever seen. I was buzzing for weeks.

Oh, you want fiction, do you? Let's see, Wicked Little Letters is my idea of a proper movie. Serious enough but with some good laughs. Or Memoir of a Snail, an Australian animated film that had me both giggling and tearing up.

Books of the Year #

I'm embarrassed that I still don't read enough fiction. I'm picking up 2-3 novels per week for Cindy but I'm either reading old journals via the Internet Archive or someone's diary or memoir. Gosh I love a good diary.

The memoir of Indigenous teacher and leader Elaine Alec, Calling my spirit back is well worth reading if you can find it. Her story is one of resilience, constant change and growth. And her lived experience gives context and meaning to things we talk about these days, like cultivating safe spaces and reconciliation.

I tried to get into How to be a craftivist: the art of gentle protest, but I'm much too angry about the state of things for the author's slow, gentle approach. She's not wrong; my anger isn't actually making change, but I wasn't in the mood to hear her message when I read the book. It's worth a read though, if you want to influence change without ranting at people. (just breathe, Marko. Breathe...)

I took a deep dive into the ideas of Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, reading Talking to my daughter about the economy or, how capitalism works-- and how it fails, Technofeudalism : what killed capitalism and his novel Another Now. He has some good ideas, for sure, but wow, once he coins a term he can bang on about it for pages and pages and pages. I suggest dipping a toe into his work, because it's worth considering a worldview that is radically different than what you see on the news. Maybe Talking to my daughter to start.

Photo of the Year #

Some of my favourites photos are interspersed throughout this letter. But this is my #1 favourite from 2024, from French Beach in October. I love Cindy's smile.

There we go. First newsletter of the year is done. I have the best of intentions to write more of them this year. In small doses. 😊

How's the New Year starting off for you? Got any good books to recommend?

Mark