2024 in pictures

As usual, at the end of the year, I look back over the photos I have taken and think about the year. This year I have published 1162 photos to Flickr. It has been a good year, seeing friends and family, taking photos, attending conferences all coupled with enjoyable work for a good client.

I am pleased to have kept up with taking a least one photo every day as part of my Project 365, which allows me to remember what happened during this year of my life and reflect on the year as I usually do. A montage of all my Project 365 photos is at the top of the page.

January

We started this year celebrating mum’s 80th birthday. I also got out to the Severn Valley Railway to see 43016 on its last day in traffic before overhaul. Overhauls take a while, so it’ll be many years before it is in steam again. Away from the computer, I worked on a model railway which is very very slowly coming together and also continued our tradition of meeting long distance friends for lunch at a pub half-way between our towns.

February

I attended OpenUK’s State of Open Con again this year where I had the surprise of seeing Liz! It was so good to catch up with her and many other amazing people. I spoke at PHPUK the following month, also at The Brewery, catching up with more people and, later in February, finished Tears of the Kingdom.

March

March saw the first Dutch PHP Conference since the pandemic. It’s under new management and part of AppDevCon now. I also got to the KVWR’s steam gala this year, again enjoying Kevin’s company while there.

April

In April, I did a fair bit of railway modelling and also went to php[tek] for the first time in many years. I also met up with my colleagues Andrés and Sarah along with catching up with so many other people that I’ve not seen in a while. There was a WorstCon too! After the conference, a few of us went into Chicago to see the sights and ended up at a rooftop bar; not a bad way to end a trip to America!

May

May is birthday month. Both kids came home in the weekend between their birthdays which was lovely and I laying the track on my model railway layout. My birthday is a little later in May and I was at phpday, which was quite wet when I walked around Verona with Kat and Rick. This month we retired my dad’s layout as it’s been over 2 years not since he was last able to model and operate it. As a result, I am now the custodian of some of his models and have put them in a display cabinet in in my office. I finished the month camping at EMFCamp which was fantastic.

June

In June, I went photographing in Shropshire at Ironbridge with Stuart. Later in the month, I spoke at Laravel Live UK, a very good conference, though I was ill afterwards with Covid. We finished the month with a trip to my sisters where I snagged a pic of our kids with their cousins.

July

July saw a trip to Croatia for Web Summer Camp. I picked up an Apple Vision Pro which I very much like. The wider-family picnic was this month too, where I snagged a selfie with dad.

August

With no conferences in August, I visited the North Yorkshire Moors railway for their gala which was excellent. As always when I visit the NYMR, I visited friends and my sister which were also highlights of the trip. We discovered that we had failed our youngest as he hadn’t seen Life of Brian, so we corrected that! I also took some photos over at the SVR on the last day of the month.

September

In September, I we had a close family meet-up, which included my aunt and cousin from America. My cousins kids really enjoy taking photos with my camera, so I bought the X-T3 with me as well as my X-H2 and they had an excellent time, taking some really nice photos of the day. Later in the month, I attended apidays London, including a AYWH meet-up.

October

Our holiday to Spain this year was at the end of September to early October. I then went to Stockholm for the Nordic APIs Platform Summit and then to Manchester for OggCamp! Later in the month, I toured St. Pancras station with the Midland Railway Society.

November

In November, we went to Lisbon for a long weekend. Lisbon is a lovely city and we really enjoyed pastel de nata! Stuart and I photographed in the Forest of Dean and I spoke at PHP Sussex in Brighton. Later in the month, I travelled north in snowy weather to celebrate my sister’s 50th where her husband had arranged a surprise party for her.

December

I visited Vienna in December to speak at my first SymfonyCon which was a lot of fun. Shoutout to the Liip folks for inviting meet join them on a walking tour of Vienna the day before the conference. We had a great Christmas where I very much enjoyed making many mince pies. At the very end of the the month, I got a final trip to the SVR in and took photos at the Winter Diesel Day.

Looking back on 2024, this year was characterised by many conferences and other tech events, with not quite enough railway photography. 2025, will no doubt be another fascinating year and I will document it with my photos!