Summa: diary (January 1-2, 2026)
I walk backwards into the future.
December 20-30, 2025. This was my Christmas:
December 31 (Wednesday). New Year’s Eve. I leave this year in the hands of the ‘Brominix’ — at the head of her list of personal Cultural Highlights 2025, composed for Nation Cymru. Julie and I met again, after an over thirty-year hiatus, on February 4 this year, at the funeral of a mutual friend, School of Art alumnus, and artist, Trevor Sewell, who’d died in January. (See: Summa: diary (December 6-12, 2025.) That day, I experienced the consoling sense of one person leaving and another re-entering my life, simultaneously. A balance of exchange — if you will — offsetting the loss.
9.00 am: I reviewed my ‘Image Diary’ for this last twelve months. (This is, for the most part, a private collection of photographs — depicting people, places, events, and things — taken at home and work, and on my travels.) Much of this year’s art-related business will carry over into the next. Nevertheless, I consider January 1 as ‘day 1’ of a new beginning. The coming twelve months will (if I’m spared) be distinguished by completions, renewals, initiatives; closures and openings; unanticipated achievements; regrets; great joy; and the myriad other gains and losses that characterise every year. 11.55 pm: On parting 2025 — two consolations:
January 1, 2026 (Thursday). 8.15 am: Proof of presence:
8.45 am: I finalised filing personal photographs for November to December 2025, before ‘beating the bounds’ of my ambulatory ‘parish’ — down through the cemetery, up Plascrug Avenue, and across the town, towards home — in between the heavy-rain showers. I’ve no special watch or phone app to count my steps. Walking is measured against the time I’ve available. And walking may include pausing, turning, and wondering (in the sense of expressing both curiosity and amazement).
10.00 am: I felt restless — eager to return to normality and work. (Thoughts about dismantling the Christmas tree on Twelfth Night intruded.) 10.30 am: For the remainder of the morning and all of the afternoon, I was the principal (sole) washer-up, as food (including glutinous rice wrapped in a lotus leaf) was prepared for dinner guests. ‘And there was evening, and there was morning — the first day.’
January 2 (Friday). 8.15 am: And I looked up and saw the flight of birds travelling northwards — like thoughts in motion.
9.30 am: And ‘behold, I saw’ a sunbeam descend, like an angel, from heaven to earth.
10.00 am: The first sleet of winter slid down the pane of my study’s window, like fluid lace.
I edged towards work, reminding myself of what had been, and remained to be, achieved. The cumulus sky flattened into a single grey. 1.15 pm: Small hail fell like slow rain, as my appointments diary for January began to fill. There will be times away from Aberystwyth to look forward to, this month. 4.30 pm: As evening fell, the jet stream of a commercial aircraft heading towards North America caught the setting sunlight. It looked like an earthbound meteor. ‘And there was evening, and there was morning — the second day.’
See also: Intersections (archive); Diary (September 15, 2018 – June 30, 2021); Diary (July 16, 2014 – September 4, 2018); John Harvey (main site); John Harvey: Sound; Studium; Academia; Facebook: The Noises of Art; Bluesky; Instagram; @Threads; YouTube; Archive of Visual Practice