So...last year went by fast! I remember writing
my summary of 2015. It doesn't feel long ago at all. And yet it does. It has been a busy year, and overall quite a good one. Well, for me personally. What has been happening in the world around us is a whole different story.
So for the second year running, my summary of the previous year, in Instagram photos:
January
January last year was kind of miserable and so was I. It was just an unhappy couple of weeks.
Towards the end of January my mood was improving. I decided to do something fun to start the year off in a more cheerful way and went to Coworth Park with two friends for afternoon tea. It was so so lovely.
February
February came and two days before Valentine's day my grandfather passed away. I knew it was coming, but that doesn't lessen the grief. Spending time with friends and family helped. The photo above is from a visit I made to Welford Park with a friend to see the snowdrops. The ground was white with them, it was really quite beautiful. It's also the place where the last few seasons of the Great British Bake-Off were filmed.
I knitted my first pair of socks in February. I wrote a
post about them and how switching attention from big things to small challenges was helpful during this time. These socks are so ugly in real life, one is a lot bigger than the other and in the first wash the colours bled and now they are mostly just grey, but I absolutely love them.
March
Things got a lot better from March onwards. The days got longer and brought sunshine and I started running regularly again. Running has always been my anti-depressant.
One of my closest friends has her birthday in March so we had brunch at the Shard one sunny weekend to celebrate. The view was completely ok. :)
April
I went to Australia in April. Finally, after intending to for the 4 years my friend had lived out there. It was incredible. I loved everything about Australia. If it wasn't so far away from everything I would be tempted to migrate. This photo is of Manly beach, taken shortly after getting off the 22h flight.
May
May was incredible. The weather couldn't have been better, everything was blossoming, and I started training for my next half-marathon. After one 10 km Sunday run I laid down in the grass among the buttercups and cows in this meadow and contemplated how ridiculously idyllic life is some days.
June
June was all about running and spending time with friends and Josh. The evenings were balmy and I'd often come home from work and go straight for a run in the afternoon sunshine. In the photo above I had finished one such run and gotten dressed to go to the movies with Josh. My top is a refashion of a shirt I had originally made for him.
We drove down to Devon for a wedding. The weather was appalling. Relentless rain and floods. But we had fun on the way down, listening to football games on the radio and eating strawberries. And the wedding was beautiful, as love always is.
July
The weather improved again in July and I spent most of my free time either running or reading books on various lawns.
August
And August brought some more...you guessed it, running. My friend and I upped our training for the half-marathon and in the photo above we had covered 15 km. Unfortunately we also got lost in some fields, which wasn't fun at the time, but we laughed plenty at it afterwards.
August also saw me do a couple of day trips with a friend. I love day trips, they are such a good way of actually doing and seeing something in a weekend. The photo above is from one such day trip to Bristol. We went specifically for the Bristol Balloon Fiesta and were lucky to see the balloons as every prior planned ascent had gotten cancelled due to strong winds.
On the last day of August we moved! This was kind of unplanned, but when our rent for a teeny tiny apartment went up to an extortionate amount we started looking around. We found an adorable cottage in the most charming location. This is the kind of place I will be looking for when I'm ready to buy a property.
September
Because of the move September was stupid busy. It was made extra busy because we were making a trip to the Lake District (planned before the move) and because I was going away for 5 days with work to a conference in London. By the time September ended I was exhausted. But happy.
October
I didn't take a great deal of photos in October. It was a busy month both at work and outside of work. When I had a free moment I spent it reading in bed.
While I don't have any pictures of it, I ran the Oxford half-marathon for the second time in October. Improved my time and finally broke the 2 h mark.
November
November was also busy. So busy. I went for walks in the fields near my house every free moment when there was daylight, visiting the sheep and watching the leaves change colours and ultimately fall off the trees. I didn't sew a lot, but I made about three of these turtlenecks.
I've blogged one of them.
December
And December was...busy. Until the 16th anyways. Then me and Josh hopped on a flight to Sweden and took a well-deserved break. We visited our friends in Swedish Lapland where we spent the days riding snow scooters, reading books, playing board games, eating good food and just enjoying each other's company. Then followed a super-lazy week with my family. And we came back to the UK rested, refreshed and ready to take on 2017.
