Thursday's child but Mike Amos's baby, the John North column reaches the end of another year. The roving writer reviews it.

January

Down to Oxfordshire to see former television weatherman Jack Scott, to Stanley Hill Top to witness the provisional monastic vows of the wonderful Australian Fr Peter Davis - a monk much given to Baxter's lobster bisque and Fray Bentos steak and kidney pudding - and up Weardale in search of romance in the hamlet of Brotherlee. Still nothing to justify the headline "Brotherlee love".

February

Doris Bagley's funeral at St Agatha's in Skeeby, near Richmond, is the church's first in 164 years, bishop's widow Marion Way from Brancepeth tells how she won her husband - "he couldn't keep me in order so he married me instead" - and the paddle tug John H Amos, long rusting on the Tees at Stockton, is being restored on the Medway. "If someone had taken it to a scrapyard," says local councillor Stephen Smailes, "they'd have come away with a goldfish in a bowl."

March

Wartime anniversaries dominate, though there's time to expose a hoax being played on the Bishop of Durham - "He said it was a shame," says Lynn Jamieson, his chaplain - and to catch up with Tony Blair, officially a surprise guest, at Ferryhill Town Hall. "Shurrup," says Keith Lumsdon, the vicar, "I told everyone the mystery guest was Mike Amos."

April

Train to Danby, on the Esk Valley line, to examine Arriva's "Adopt a station" scheme. A notice warns that there's no public telephone nearby - except, perhaps, for the one two yards away.

May

Back to King James I school in Bishop Auckland, 400 years old in 2005 and, the column notes, "all inter-active white boards and clusters of excellence now". There's also the bitter-sweet story of Darlington councillor Roderick Burtt, who finally marries teacher Judith Kent after an engagement lasting 35 years - but after learning that he has terminal cancer. "If I'd known a day could be so happy, I'd have got married more often," says Rod.

June

Fairground operator John Culine, born in a caravan and never having lived anywhere else, has become Mayor of Spennymoor, Monster Raving Looney Boney Maroney announces plans to oppose Tony Blair in Sedgefield - "They haven't seen my yellow skeleton suit yet, it's posher than anything Cherie has" - and in a field in Cheshire we discover the magnificent Hayngel of the North.

July

Durham Big Meeting marchers are texting last minute plans - "as a means of communication it beats the hell out of homing pigeons," someone says. Church Army officer Anne Williams, 58, has a genuine baptism of fire on becoming "community missioner" on Sunderland's troubled Ford Estate and Browney workmen's club, near Durham, bucks the closure trend by celebrating its centenary. "The ones that have closed are the ones that lived beyond their means," says Tommy Akers, the treasurer.

August

Amid much excitement, we discover the "other" Shildon - a former lead mining community just over the Northumberland border, near Blanchland, once comprising 27 houses, 163 people and a Primitive Methodist chapel. Much else was primitive, too. Around 800 people join the 15 mile "Beating of the bounds" at Richmond - there's a beer tent, like a mirage, in the middle - and John Foster from Langley Park has a collection of 12,000 theatre programmes and other memorabilia. "A lot more interesting than many of the things you see on television," he says.

September

The National Railway Museum overflow opens in Shildon, the County Durham one - "not only very good, it's free" - while Shildon lad John Robinson climbs Ben Nevis barefoot. "There was a buzz going round the mountain," he reports, "everyone asking one another if they'd seen the dozy devil in bare feet." Seldom Seen, once a hamlet near Bishop Auckland, makes a rare reappearance, too.

October

A splendid dinner at Auckland Castle, not just a pretty facade, a trip to Sunderland to see pitman painter Norman Cornish's latest exhibition - "You've just signed your death warrant" they told the young Norman after he put pen to indentures - and a potter around the Hartlepool by-election where 50s' heart throb Ronnie Carroll, once thrown out of the church choir for singing Nymphs and Shepherds, is among 14 candidates.

November

A few days' holiday on the North Yorkshire moors upturns all sorts of stones, the column reveals the "hat on a pole" option for a Stan Laurel memorial in Bishop Auckland - some don't find it funny at all - and there's a pleasant afternoon in the hamlet once known as Little Ireland, Gordon Gill, near Evenwood.

December

A month mainly devoted to penny ducks - 15 for £4.77 in Darlington. They're even on offer at the Darlington Traditional Brewing Group's Christmas party, at which Amos Ale proves yet more irresistible. Duck may be on the menu on Saturday, too, though Charlie Walker's annual turkey handsomely tops the table.

To him and to all John North readers, a very happy Christmas.