Time to pause from posting my sketches from last summer, and bring it back to 2026 for a moment. I sketched this last weekend while the Super Bowl was on, I wasn’t really watching (I think it was the Seagulls vs the Parrots; all the NFL teams are named after birds I think) but I did catch the halftime show, since it’s all everyone in the whole country was talking about, and it was very good. A lot better than watching Spurs lately; we sacked another manager. Anyway we were at home not doing much, as you can see from the decorations, there was a significant birthday in the house the day before. Well half a century feels significant, but I didn’t want it to be, so we ended up staying in and having a curry. I had a nice ice cream cake though. There was a surprise mini-celebration at work a couple of days before that I wasn’t expecting, that was very nice of everyone to do that. I get embarrassed by attention. Anyway that’s happened now, we are doing something fun in May to celebrate more, I’m looking forward to. The world in general seems to just be increasingly awful and anxiety-inducing in so many ways, but my ice cream cake was nice. One thing about turning a significant number is the amount of looking back you do, and particularly over the last ten years. I have progressed, got a promotion to a job that keeps me busy and gives me the chance to do and learn different things, I have travelled to a lot of new places, I’ve bought a house, coached a load of youth soccer teams, I have drawn in my sketchbooks more than ever before and got a lot more confident with it, but I haven’t done any more books since 2016, and I had plans in my head I’ve not gotten around to. I’ve had a lot of art on display (mostly in the Pence) but my last solo art show was 2016 at the UCD Design Museum. There was also a pandemic and we’ve all had various growths or setbacks related to that. So I feel there is still more I could have achieved, and more I still want to (need to) do. Maybe by the next significant birthday I’ll have it all figured out. But for now, just get on with the jobs in front of me, and sketching the world around me, and see what happens. And hope Spurs can finally get better.