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In 2023, 2024 and 2025, I used my New Year’s Day post to count things.

This was the first of Anne Tyler’s many novels that I’ve picked up, and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.

This is Hexham Bridge, which has been crossing the Tyne for 232 years: longer even than it takes to cross the Tyne Bridge at rush hour with the current ongoing restoration work.

This is Molly: unveiled on the banks of the Wear earlier this year, the statue commemorates the women who kept Sunderland’s shipyards running during the World Wars.

In my day job, I am the successor to the District Medical Officer referred to in this notice pinned to a wall in an early 1900s school at Beamish.

With Air, John Boyne brings his quartet of elemental novellas to a close, and it feels like a strong, fitting conclusion—though I was a little sad to finish the series.

I recently walked past Leith Library which is almost a century old.