I had a lot of them today and they were mostly exhausting, but

1. The train manager on the train to Euston told us what platform we'd come in to (making it clear that there might be a last-minute change!), what side the doors would open on, how to get to the Underground and even buses and taxis. Since it's a station I know well, I could verify that everything he was saying was the right amount and kind of information that would've helped me if I hadn't known that and needed to.

2. I'm not sure this is what was going on because it might not have been working that way but... I think that there was a new feature over the two accessible toilet doors in Euston: there were big lights over the doors, one was red and one was green, so I assumed this meant one was locked and one is open. Like I said my experience made this kinda confusing but it at least made me think it'd be a really good idea! At the moment I have to look for a teeny circle near the lock/handle of the door and determine whether it's white or red. Which, in dim locations like you get at Euston, can be surprisingly difficult! And I feel like an idiot trying my key in a locked door and I don't like to stress out the occupant -- I at least find it stressful when I'm in there and hear someone trying the door, suddenly unsure that I locked it or that it has stayed locked. If a big red or green light over the door could be relied on and rolled out, that'd be great.

Mom and Dad told me tonight about two friends of my brother's, and one of them's mom who was the school nurse at the time so knows all of us as well as being the mom of his friend, who she's run into lately who told her they always remember Chris at this time of year.

Two of the three apparently said especially that it was twenty years this year, and my mom was surprised that they remembered that specifically. But I have a couple friends about my age who had schoolfriends die when they were in school or soon after, and they certainly remember the person and how long it's been. We are lucky enough to live in an age when child/young person death is rare enough to stand out.

The school nurse mom even told my mom about how her daughter's kids know about him because the daughter has a Christmas ornament with a photo of my brother on it which my parents had made and handed out to people the Christmas after (I got one too, in my terrible flat in West Didsbury, but I never really wanted it and lost it along the way). The kids know about all the ornaments on their tree so they know this one is for "Mom's friend who died a long time ago." I love that.

On a kinda rough day, before two days in London for work that I'm dreading, this was a nice moment.

Their mom and my brother had been friends since kindergarten, when she was one of the girls who called him Kissyfur after a cartoon of that time, and who he used to entertain by doing stuff like pretending not to notice when the girls put snow in his hat and he put it on anyway so they could all laugh.

She sang at his funeral, which is such a gift to be able to offer a peer, when you're only twenty-one.

I ended up stepping in to read out the questions and answers for a Christmas quiz at work today, a colleague made it but then lost her voice so needed someone else to do the talking. She got two someone elses, R and me. We traded off asking the questions, and one of R's was the name of the Wallace & Gromit movie that came out on Christmas Day in 2024.

At which point I quietly muttered "two years ago already, gosh" and R said "Erik, that was last year."

Oh! Yeah! It was! It's only 2025 now!

"It has been a long year," he said kindly, and as he's basically acted as project manager for the reports I've written he knows as well as anyone how long my year has been at work!