It's New Year's Eve, and I've just remembered that I haven't done a 'year in review' blog post this year - so I'm quickly knocking this out now! In fact, I'm sorry to say, I haven't blogged much at all this year - with my primary focus being on the podcast. This will only be my second blog post of the year! Hopefully, the podcast content makes up for the lack of blog content! So let's start with that...

This year has obviously been a lot different than everyone expected. I feel extremely fortunately and lucky to be in an industry that naturally makes it easy to work from home. In fact, remote work is something I've wanted to try full-time for quite some time, and this year has not only forced it to happen, but also made it more normal in our industry (hopefully now moving forwards). It's just a shame it took something so terrible as what's happening for this to become a thing.

Like probably most of you, I'm now working from home full-time. Or technically, from "the Everstack office", which is my house anyway. I've worked from home every Friday for a long time now, and also had a short period many years ago working from home full-time too. I've now been working from home for almost a month full-time due to the Coronavirus.

It's that time of the year again for another year in review blog post! 2019 was a great year, and I continue to feel incredibly lucky to have landed in an industry that I see as a hobby; am very passionate about; pays well; and is full of such amazing people!

A couple of Sunday's ago was the last day of our family holiday. We'd hired a static caravan in Wales for the week, and other than busting my ankle at a trampoline park in Cardiff - it was a great holiday! And on that last day, it got a lot better! My wife Anna was at the beach with Jack (our eldest) and I was at the caravan with Mason (our 3-year-old). I checked my email on my phone, and saw that I had an email from Microsoft saying that I'd been awarded the Microsoft MVP award!!

As another year draws to an end, it's time for another year in review blog post. And this year I hit the big "four-zero", so it also marks the end of a decade! But don't worry - I won't try and overview the past decade in this post - let's stick with 2018!...

It's close to the end of another year already! And whilst in some ways, it feels like it has flown by - in other ways, an awful lot has happened! The main thing this year has definitely been .NET Oxford. Our first meetup was only in January, which is a very short amount of time really. It feels like it's been around for much longer!

Well, 2015 was definitely quite an interesting year - with two job changes, and the start of my own company! But far more importantly - we had the very exciting news that we're going to have another little baby boy mid 2016!

Seven weeks ago we were told that our company was going into administration due to financial difficulties. Whilst at the time, this didn't necessarily mean the company was closing down, and there was chance of finding a buyer, unfortunately on Friday we were informed that the decision had been made to liquidate the company. There were a few interested parties, but the investors had decided to cut their losses and close the company rather than risking putting more money in.

Well, I've finally done it ... Last week I handed in my notice at work! Now is the start of my new adventure ...