Well, another arbitrary division of the calendar has arrived, so it's probably time for the semitraditional annual review.

This time two years ago I wrote that 2005 had been the slowest year in my love life since it originally managed to get going. Well, now it isn't any more; 2007 has beaten its record. Nothing whatsoever happened in my love life, for the entire year.

Work was unusually stressful, for several reasons, foremost among which was that I unexpectedly had to take over responsibility for a colleague's code mid-way through the product cycle, and then try to meet the deadlines he'd committed to without his detailed knowledge of how it all worked. (While not missing a beat on my existing responsibilities, naturally; although fortunately those haven't been particularly demanding this year – which was one reason the new stuff chose me to land on.) Not only that, but I had to do all of this while going through the stress of a first-time house purchase, and also I didn't get a holiday for several months longer than I usually go between breaks (because given my housing situation it simply wouldn't have been restful anyway). Add that lot up, and you're looking at someone who seriously needed a rest when I finished work for the year.

But without question, the biggest thing that happened to me all year was the abovementioned house purchase: I have now successfully joined the ranks of the filthy landowning bourgeoisie, and only missed by a few months doing so before turning thirty. This process actually took me nearly all year – in fact, a little of last year too if you count my preliminary investigation of mortgage options in very late 2006. I didn't talk about it much while it was going on, not least because I didn't want to jinx it, but the rough timeline went something like this:

February: began seriously looking. Found an entirely workable house, and after some dithering made an offer. Owner promptly took the house off the market.
May: three months of on-and-off hunting having got me nowhere, I took two weeks off work and applied myself more vigorously. Found an even better house and made another offer, which was accepted.
August: exchange and completion, the latter nearly at the end of the month.
October: actually moved in, having stayed in the old rented flat for over a month while I had the place pre-emptively redecorated and recarpeted. Almost immediately wished I'd had it pre-emptively rewired as well, since the electrics went out within a week.
December: got the place to the point where I was able to laze around in it without constantly coming up against things that desperately needed doing. Some things do still need doing, naturally, but they're not terribly urgent (yet).

Now I'll have to find something different to stress me out in 2008!