2025 Goals

Time to outline what my 2025 goals are, in terms of health, learning, enjoying life and getting out of this ridiculously cloudy country – amongst various other categories.

I do seem to be adding more goals every year, so the list might be getting slightly out of control, but hey – there’s lots I want to do to improve my life, and enjoy my life even more. It actually seems to work for me…I’m doing alright in life, right?

Get Fit, Feel Fab

Lose 11kg. I think an ideal weight for me to be is 85kg, and I started 2025 at 96kg. I’m going to be stricter on myself as I’ll allude to further in this section, especially around alcohol – which let’s face is, is why I am overweight.

Do 3 forms of exercise that are not walking. Will 2025 be the year that I grace the tennis courts of Croydon? I can think of things that are likelier, for example, re-joining the EU. But it’s a goal to get more active. I should add – stacking shelves counts as exercise.

Go dancing. Sometimes I miss dancing, normally after a few drinks. So this is a vague goal to go dancing, of any form, for 30 minutes, on two occasions.

Get some data on my health. I kind of ignore this, but I do need data on my health that I’m currently pretending is totally fine.

11-week detox, except for my birthday. The usual nearly 3 month detox, which will take me up until the weekend where I go to Budapest to get my teeth!

No drinking in the UK, bar special occasions, until 85kg. However, this is an additional bit of detox, to state that until I reach 85kg, which almost definitely won’t happen by 19th March, then I can only drink on special occasions – which would be birthdays, posh dinners and holidays. I’d still be not drinking at home, work events, normal roast dinners, etc. Yep, I really do want to lose the weight this year.

18 weekend days off drinking outside detox. Again, aiming to reduce alcohol in general – I don’t need 3-4 beers every Friday and Saturday night, in my flat, post-detox. I have a lot more to achieve in life.

Only eat cake/chocolate on 50 days. The other thing apart from alcohol as to why I’m overweight is the amount of cake/chocolate I eat…so I’m trying to keep it for special occasions. I failed last year, so am being a tad more generous this year.

3 separate 30 day periods with no cake/chocolate. An extension of the previous goal – when I failed last year in October, this was then cue for me to eat cake/chocolate almost every day for the rest of the year. This is so I have a target to reach even if the previous one fails in October.

Reduce blood pressure. One thing I can measure myself and is in the too high category, though a good 10% lower than where I started last year. Aiming for a similar reduction in 2025…I can stave off those blood pressure tablets until I’m at least in my 50’s, surely?

Learning and Coding

Build something in SvelteKit. Yay, change of topic. Last year I delved into Astro, which I’m really keen on as a replacement for Next/React – this year I want to try out Svelte/Sveltekit – and am going to rebuild the Reading Weather website with it.

Re-build rdldn. Dear old Roast Dinners In London is creaking under the hood, and built in technology I don’t use (PHP/Laravel) or understand especially well…I’m a bit scared it might just not work at some point and it will be difficult to fix. So I’m rebuilding it in Astro.

Rdldn mailing list. I used to have a mailing list for Roast Dinners In London, but it stopped working when Mailchimp decided to charge for anything automated. So I’m wondering about bringing a monthly newsletter back, perhaps through Substack, perhaps charging for subscription…or maybe not but then arranging events and charging for them. Any thoughts on how best to do this appreciated!

Build an Azure project with authentication and a database. I really need to learn Azure to upskill myself to the next level as an engineer…I have been doing a course and will be taking my AZ-900 exam soon, but it would help if I have my own project on Azure, so I can play around with resource groups, subscriptions, etc.

10 new features JS/CSS/React. Basically a goal to keep up with developments in the main languages/frameworks I use.

Read 4 more books than I buy. I still have about 15 books at home unread.

Read book on investing, staff engineer, Spanish, and big politics. So this is to focus some learning in areas that I want to improve, but also to read one of my 800 ish page political books which are HEAVY.

Duolingo – Section 5 – Unit 50. Si, todavia aprendido Español, por mi futura vida en España. Fingers crossed Duolingo don’t fuck around with the course structure again so I can actually keep a count of my target – this would get me halfway through B1 on the CEFR level of language learning – B2 is the highest. At some point I will need to do something other than Duolingo…maybe a meet-up somewhere?

Stay Organised

Have nothing on my to-do list one day, in 3 separate months. I like reaching to-do zero. It happened once in 2024.

Have 0 unread e-mails in my inbox one day, in 3 separate months. I like being on top of my e-mails.

Feed the Foodie

Oldest 10 roasts – up to The Audley Public House. Some roast dinners get stuck on my to-do list for ages, so this is my attempt to make sure I’m going to the oldest roasts (often the most expensive or awkward to get to!).

2 roast dinners in other countries. Got to keep flying the flag for roast dinners elsewhere in the world.

15 excellent (or think will be) restaurants. I have so many restaurants on my to-do list, it just keeps growing too. I went to 10 excellent places last year, though added about 25 to my list. I might even go to some on Sundays…yeah…no roast.

6 of the oldest 12 restaurants on my list. Same above list, and try to visit some of those that have been on there since I moved to London.

12 restaurants in Croydon. I really want to be more involved with Croydon, and one of the ways I could do this is to actually eat at some of the plethora of probably bang average restaurants near me, but who knows, there might be some gems. Hell…I might even start a little blog.

Less than £100 food waste. I don’t like wasting food. Should speak for itself…the only environmental goal I can be arsed with because the likes of Just Stop Oil have made me stop caring so much.

155 recipes. I love cooking, so this is a slightly increased target from 2024. Just under 3 different recipes a week…feels doable.

Finish 3 cookbooks. And this is to finish some of the 12 cookbooks I have on the go! 2 are nearly finished so should be easy…once I have teeth.

Be Social

Celebrate More Special Days. The idea of this is to inject a bit more fun into my life, and celebrate things like Cinco De Mayo, Bastille Day – basically anything where I can hop on board someone else’s celebrations. Left it vague as to what counts, and 6 times is the aim. Maybe you want to join me?

Do London stuff once a week on average. Something I’ve been trying to do for a while, basically enjoy London more. Anything like art galleries, cinema, theatre, good meals – these all count. Going to a pub for a beer, doesn’t count.

Do things in Croydon. People moan about Croydon, a lot, mostly racist assholes on Facebook. But not all, and some people simply moan about Croydon yet don’t do what it offers. So my goal here is do things in Croydon 6 times during the year…restaurants and meet-ups don’t count as they are covered elsewhere. Needs to be exhibitions, theatre, etc.

Socialise in Croydon 12 times. Again this is about doing things in Croydon, and is basically trying to get me to meet people in Croydon to go for drinks/food with.

Visit two friends that don’t live in Reading/London. Well I managed this 3 times last year – one unfortunate aspect of my group of friends is that they live all over the place, so a goal is to try to visit two of them at some point each year. Ideally not the same ones every year, but gosh that is tempting!

Attend some meet-ups. Again another aim to meet more people, this time through attending 4 different meet-ups, ie going to the Croydon meet-up several times would only count once. Also got my eye on a craft beer meet-up, and a JavaScript one. Heck, maybe I might even create one.

Wander the World

4 different new countries. Same target as every year, except during the pandemic, and I normally only make it to 3!

One Of The Closest 3 Countries. I’m not sure how accurate this is, but according to ChatGPT, Norway, Monaco and Andorra are the 3 closest countries that I’ve not visited. Andorra does sound like a pain in the ass to get to.

A European City of Culture. I want to go to more of the European Capitals of Culture – how have I never even been to Athens or Florence?

Leave Europe once. Also I really want to explore the world more…I get put off my long-distance flights so maybe the Middle East or North Africa would be a good step in the right direction. Then again, the only long distance flights I’ve done involved wearing a mask…so I’m probably scarred. Well, “wearing” a mask whilst not eating or drinking, and I did my best to be continuously drinking.

Warm sunshine in a winter month. I think the easiest way to improve my life would be to get some warm sunshine in one of the 4 darkest months. This winter has gone on so long…last winter felt shorter, probably because November 2023 I was in Malaga for most of it, and it was 20’C most of the time, even reaching 27’C at one point.

Upgrade My Life/Home

Upgrade tech. Well, Microsoft informed me they are not supporting my Windows 10 PC come October, so I cannot put it off any more. Plus I need a new phone, speakers, earphones and printer. Obviously I have all of these already, but I want to UPGRADE, if you understand.

Main furniture/appliances bought. Did I really only buy a bed and a sofa last year? OK, these were kind of important, and both I got spot on. I still need a breakfast bar, stools, rug, armchair, bookshelves (or similar), actual shelves, DJ unit (current set-up is so ugly), toaster, kettle and Christmas tree.

Be On Track With My 2032 “Soft Retirement” Plan. The world seems to be heading in the direction of megalomaniac tech-bro right-wing authoritarian control, and I can envisage a day where we all have to work 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week, in an office, otherwise we are re-migrated to El Salvador. Therefore my goal is to be in a position, by 2032, to be able to say “fuck you, I can pay off my mortgage and do what I like for the rest of my life”. It’s a tough saving plan to achieve, and will need pay rises and stuff going forwards, AI not advancing too much…and also tends to conflict with many other goals like fun and holidays. Not putting the financial figures in public, but it is written down and will tell you if you ask.

Paint main room. Pretty straight forward…get rid of the horrid light blue-ish grey-ish colour. And then all the rooms will have been painted.

Investment framework. Following my studies of Benjamin Graham, I want to create an investment framework to guide my decisions. I have a rough plan of action here, but will need a lot of spreadsheet work.

Sort out flat problems. I have a list of 16 problems to fix, and this is a list that will likely extend – things like towel storage, artwork, shelving, bed sheets that match, mood lighting – all stuff that will improve the flat and make it mine.

Spent £100 on dating. Once I have teeth I have no more excuses. I’m not sure I actually want a wife, I rather like my life as it is…but maybe it could be an upgrade if I found someone? I don’t actually need to go on any dates to achieve this, spending £100 on apps would suffice…the thinking being it would at least be something.