Happy New Year // Goodbye 2017, Hello 2018...
January 02, 2018
All of that being said, it's a perfect time as we transition into a fresh new year to look back upon 2017 and take stock of what a year it has been. Two thousand and seventeen for us was a year to remember forever. I think these golden years before we think about starting a family will always be special, we've been married for 3 and a half years now and I love all of our adventures. As a couple it was mainly about finishing our building work {I'm still pinching myself over our new kitchen after the many months of building chaos!!} along with lots of unforgettable travels around the globe. On a personal level, my career has gone to extremes that I never even dreamed of and whilst there were some lows among the highest highs, as ever, this time of year makes me feel so so grateful and thankful for so much, especially those around me. I love looking back upon these posts, this blog has and will always be a diary for me to reflect upon so thank you for indulging me on this look back on some of the highlights and as ever for reading. I know that some of you have been following along from the very first post, so thank you!
January // started with a few cosy days in a couple of different cottages in Cornwall where we took a few days after Christmas for beach walks and fires to ease ourselves into the year. Our building work had just started so we had a couple of freezing cold weeks which seemed to slow everything down. By the end of January I was fed up with the weather, the dust and no kitchen! It seemed like it would never end.
It was at this time that I got diagnosed with adrenal fatigue by a homeopath after feeling rubbish for a good few weeks. I don't think I talked much about it at the time because it was only once I was on the road to recovery in which I realised what a dark time it had been. I think it's hard to write about things health/mental wise on the blog, especially when compared to most it's not as bad as severe depression/anxiety. The weather affects me, and our weekends were mainly spent indoors due to a few awful weeks of pouring rain/snow!
I hit 50 thousand Instagram followers {say what!} and tried to find as much joy in the little things like buying fresh flowers.
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February // brought Valentine's Day which began the upward spiral. After a particularly cold, snowy week, after weeks of umming and ahhing about getting away for some much needed Vitamin D {but worrying about leaving the builders and our extension as Ben was project managing it all}, we booked a last minute trip to Palm Springs! SO unlike me, I plan everything months in advance. Coincidentally, we had a trip pre-booked to the Pig hotel for a Valentine's Stay and that combined with the few weeks of taking the homeopathic remedies and vitamins to boost myself up, I felt like myself again. {although I remember feeling very worried about my mental state going to America, it was make or break! But thankfully it restored me}. I gave an update on our building work and the day after the steels got lifted over our house in our grand designs moment, we flew to LA and Palm Springs {part one, part two} which has now become one of our favourite places in the world. We're planning on going back for a month next year all being well!
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March // saw us tackling more house projects {like this fireplace} whilst the building work outside was still going on. Ben took over with his team once the blocks were up, and soon we had a roof on! The building project took up a lot of my time with decision making. This post summed most things up and we felt like Spring was starting to show. We had a work stay at The Grove, it was Mother's Day, my Birthday and London was full of blossom.
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In April // we took a trip to The Maldives {here and here}, partly for work and partly back to where we honeymooned! It was even better than we remembered. And then came home to Easter and Wisteria Hysteria. The building work was by now almost onto the finishing touches and the kitchen island got painted along with putting down our herringbone floor. Finally, the fun part and by this point I was over all the dust and happy to have the end in sight! There were the first picnics of the season and the fields were all green again.
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May // was a crazy fun month for travel. We started the month off on the Amalfi Coast {here, here and here} which blew me away. I fell in love with the food and Fiat's and we adored Positano so much that we've decided to go back this year. We finished our summerhouse off and the garden started blooming. The utility room was underway and we then took off to Mykonos {here and here} with Mr & Mrs Smith, returning to our long awaited kitchen delivery the day after we got home!
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June // always feels like peak summer to me. We had BBQs with these mini pavlovas and wanted to be outside as much as possible in the garden. We took a day to visit Mottisfont's impressive rose gardens, and finished off some more kitchen DIY projects like making a table out of scaffold boards and a shaker peg shelf. Peony season was back too! We had one last trip to visit my brother in uni at Brighton before he graduated and cut roses and sweet peas to bring inside.
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July // was the hottest summer month and on a 30 degree day we escaped to The Wittering's for a beach day. Who knew England could look so good? We had fun with a new Mini for a month and celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary in Lisbon for a weekend {here, here and here} where I went crazy for all the pretty decorated tiled, and pink walls. We finished our garden and stairs, and I shared my favourite summer recipes. Our kitchen was finally all finished and I shared tips on staying sane during renovating. With most things finished, I put together the ultimate guide to where everything is from in our house.
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In August // I shared our stay from a couple of blissful summer days in Norfolk & Suffolk, staying at this cottage. And then a couple of weeks later, a similar minibreak to the Cotswolds. I got featured in the Sunday Times Home magazine as a top interiors influencer, which I'm still pinching myself about! And I shared our finished full kitchen post. I posted lots of photos from the summer so far, the days that I dream of year round. And then we had two photoshoots in two weeks, Binky came to shoot a day in our life including some of us at our allotment which I'll treasure forever and then Rock my Style shot the finished house. I wrote my most controversial post to date about why we don't want children just yet, but was overwhelmed by all of your beautiful positive replies to it. We rounded off the month with Ben's Birthday and a stay at the Pig on the Beach, an old favourite of ours. This month had it's troubles though too with Ben having to have more minor skin cancer removed, it was a scary, really horrible time for a few weeks with the surgery. The Pig was our saviour!
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In September // I shared our finished snug room and then we took off to tropical paradise Mauritius! {here and here} where aside from 4 days work to start with, we had such a relaxing break. We came home to a garden full of dahlias, and I wrote this month by month garden guide along with a finished utility boot room post. The days grew colder, so I talked about some Autumn fashion. And then we escaped for one last blast of sun with Soho House Barcelona for a long weekend, both the hotel and city exceeded my v high expectations - it was somewhere I'd wanted to visit for such a long time!
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October // is always a favourite month after summer has ended. It brings pumpkins, crunchy autumn leaves and cosy nights in. I wrote this post on growing pumpkins at our allotment and shared an exciting M&S campaign with my first time in front of a film crew! We then hopped across the pond for a couple of weeks for a trip we'd been dreaming of for a long time... New York & New England in the Fall. It was pumpkin heaven for this crazy girl. I baked this pumpkin chocolate chip bread for a couple of weeks after we got back.. I wrote these posts on our stay in Princeton, Marblehead and Boston.
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November // saw me talking about autumn and Spring bulb planting along with Bonfire Night and autumnal days out/recipes. I finished up my New York City Guides and Best Eats posts and made an Autumn wreath. I shared my tips for growing & drying hydrangeas.
// And then came December! With all things Christmas. Decking the halls {our house}, making a Christmas Wreath, tips for hosting Christmas and a festive night away in the Cotswolds. We had lots of snow! And I shared photos both here and here from all that went on in December. I shared a personal post on meeting my husband, and loved all the messages it sparked on Instagram. It was a month filled with magic, frost mornings and a lot of time spent with our friends and family. I'm always so sad when January rolls around!
What a year! I'm excited to see what this new chapter brings. We have some really exciting travel lined up with trips to the Turks & Caicos islands, Australia, Sri Lanka along with revisiting some old favourites. We're trying to soak up another year or so of travel before thinking about children so it's a pretty jam packed year one way or another. We also have some new house projects to tackle, a new bedroom and loft conversion for an en-suite bathroom.
R <3 xx
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