Well, 2024 is almost at an end, and I must tell you, this year has been a whirlwind experience. I will share my Top Ten selection of images from the year in a moment, but first, I wanted to reflect on the year as a whole.

I started the year as usual with my Winter Tours, now less than two weeks away for the 2025 season. I had been concerned about the performance of a few investments I had in the Isle of Man through a company that came to our offices a year after I moved back to Japan in 2000. I had committed to investing a manageable amount each month and added a couple of lump sums, which were invested terribly. The financial adviser advised us on what we should invest in, and some of those investments completely bombed while others clung on. Still, my significant lump sum investments only managed to clamber back to around 70%. The primary investment grew gradually, although never as much as expected, and then, the Japanese Yen took a dive, which was good for my investments in UK Pound Sterling. I stood to make around 150% more on my investment than I would have if the Yen had not weakened, so I started to think about cashing in my policies early to benefit from this.

Then, serendipity kicked in. One of the guests on my first Winter Wildlife tour was an incredibly generous and helpful financial advisor from the Isle of Man who confirmed what I’d suspected. My policies were just about the worst I could be invested in. The advisor I’d been with over the years had been selecting policies based on his commission rate rather than what would have given better returns for me. I’d already asked for details of my surrender options, but this meeting lit a fire in me, and by the time I’d completed the winter tour season, my surrender request was in full swing, and I got the funds around the end of March. I’d lost money on some of the investments, but the weak Yen had swung in my favor, so I now had enough money to buy a house, which has been my dream for decades.

I’ve kept you in the loop on the new place, but to briefly recap, we found a lovely new house in the Gunma Prefecture, at the northwest tip of the Kanto plain, surrounded on three sides by beautiful mountains and in the closer proximity, encapsulated by some supermarkets and a garden center, as well as a hairdresser for my wife, and drug store, for when we need some drugs. We can essentially live almost entirely within a five-minute circumference, which isn’t very appealing now, but as my wife and I age and probably have to give up our car, it will make life much easier. We are both at the age where we need to start and think about this. The only remaining concern was that the house we found didn’t have solar panels, and I really wanted to reduce our carbon footprint, so for the sake of the environment, we have just applied for a loan via a company that will install a solar power system that should be capable of powering our house through the seasons, leaving us with little to no necessity to buy any additional power. With a bit of luck, we’ll make enough electricity most days to sell some back to the electricity company, which will help.

I did, of course, have a lot on my plate after the move, and that started with my summer visit to Namibia, and then I’ve spent a lot of time finalizing the finer details of our new house, including landscaping the back garden, and making a start on the front garden. We now have a Japanese Maple at the back, and a mikan, like a Satsuma orange tree, alongside a persimmon tree in the front garden.

You may be able to tell, but I’ve been very happy as I’ve sorted out the finer details, but it hasn’t been an absolutely rosy year. The tax office at our new location decided they don’t like how I handle the taxes on payments for my Japan-based tours, despite my previous tax accountant and I visiting the tax office in Tokyo and getting full approval for our accounting method. We have worked that way for over ten years without a single issue. I have provided details of the meeting, including who agreed, but the new local tax office has not paid my requested rebate and is still debating whether or not to force me to change my accounting. I love our new location but have been disappointed by this, and I’m hoping that things will be cleared up, hopefully in my favor, very soon.

You’ll have noticed that, as I expected, I have wound down significantly on the frequency of the Podcast. Still, I honestly expected this to be more of a natural winding down, to spend more time enjoying life with my wife, but the reality has been a little different. I seem busier than ever and constantly feel like there are not enough hours in the day. For a few months, that was partly because I was spending time preparing for some archery competitions, which are important to me, but as the winter sets in, I’ve been working hard to prepare for the upcoming tours, and my archery has taken a back seat again, probably until the spring now.

I am, of course, now looking forward to starting our Winter tours and meeting the new guests, along with some old friends who are signed up. It’s just before noon on Christmas Day as I write this, and I have a bunch of other stuff to do, so I think I’ll place my Top Ten for the year into an album and hope you have a few minutes to take a look.

If you go through this exercise yourself each year, please take a moment to share a link to your own Top Ten images via the comments below. I look forward to seeing what you made of 2024.

And as we say goodbye to 2024 and welcome in a new year, I hope and pray that the world will become a better place in the coming year. I won’t go into details, but the actions of a few specific leaders continue to sadden me deeply, as does the inaction of many nations I thought would know better. I hope and pray that we see an end to this madness sooner rather than later. Enough is enough.

Show Notes

View previous year’s Top Ten posts: https://martinbaileyphotography.com/tag/top-ten/

Music by Martin Bailey

Audio

Subscribe in iTunes to get Podcasts delivered automatically to your computer.

Download this Podcast as an MP3 with Chapters.

Visit this page for help on how to view the images in MP3 files.