My 2023 highlights in numbers

One year ends, another begins. It's time for my annual end-of-year blog post and I usually theme these in one way or another (reasons it was the best, reasons it was the worst, highs and lows). 2023 has been a bit of a mixed bag for me to be honest, but good or bad, I've certainly packed a lot in! So the theme that sung out to me the most was my year in numbers. From travel to my career, from eating out to achieving resolutions, let's see how much I really managed to pack into 2023. Some of them may surprise you!

14 travel destinations visited

It was another incredible year of travel in 2023, from literally start to finish. I started out the year on a champagne cruise in LA with Ollie (we flew home on New Year's Day so it's not being counted in the running total). Then I went to Geneva with Ollie and my family in February for some scenery and cheese fondue. Next up was Bucharest in March and at the last minute, circumstances changed so Ollie didn't come and I ended up on my first solo holiday. For Easter, Ollie and I took a little two-stop trip through Belgium and had lots of beer and chocolate in Bruges and then Brussels. My first girls trip of the year was to Seville in May with Laura, which shot straight to the top of my favourite cities list. It was time to tick another new country off when Ollie and I went to Belgrade for my birthday celebrations in June. Then in July, I lay around for a week drinking in the sunshine in Cape Verde with Ollie and my family. August was an exciting one as I went to 5 different places! Firstly, me and the Katie's did a multi-stop trip to Italy where we had amazing food in Pisa, wine tasting in Florence and then relaxation in Cinque Terre. And as if that wasn't enough, me and Ollie also did a multi-stop holiday that month where we stayed a couple of nights in Nice and then a couple of nights in Monaco seeing how the other half live. I managed a whole month off in September (shocker), but then had a very back-to-back double whammy in October (with only 1 day between trips). Me, Sophia and Justin finally made it to Budapest after talking about it for literal years. And then I went and visited Laura in her new home in Milan for the first time! It was only a few weeks until I was back in Milan again for a very special occasion (more on that shortly). Then I planned my first proper solo holiday and went for some winter sun and Ancient Egypt exploration in Hurghada. Finally, I closed off the year with a very cute and festive snowy weekend in Vilnius with my family. Every year just continues to be absolutely amazing for travel and it still remains my absolute favourite thing to do. Now we're looking at a clean slate of the next 12 months - let's see how many pins on the map I can add this time.

1 fancy dress party

Tell me what you want what you really really want... to dress as for a surprise 30th fancy dress party, with a 90s theme. Naturally, me and the girls decided to go as the spice girls! Well, it could hardly have worked out more perfectly, since there was 5 of us. The divvying of who went as who actually happened quite organically too, and it was kind of a given that I'd be posh spice. We had a mix of inspo photos but we all just decided to go as each spice girls' most iconic look. Arguably posh spice's most iconic look is the black dress but I didn't think that a black dress felt like much of a costume so I went for the PU catsuit instead with the gloves. It was such a fun party and we absolutely nailed the looks (if I do say so myself). Other 90s costumes included Mia and Vincent from Pulp Fiction, the Gallagher brothers, and Cher Horowitz from Clueless.

4 city breaks

I do a lot more international travel than I do through the UK, but I do love to plan city breaks whenever I can! This year I managed 4, all with different people actually. Me and my mum went to London in April for a West End weekend. We went for some lovely meals, explored little Venice and saw Wicked which was amazing. In June, Ollie treated me to an all expenses paid weekend in Manchester for my birthday and I certainly made the most of it; we did some fine dining, day drinking and a spa day at Carden Park which I'd always wanted to go to. Then me and Laura made the most of the late September sunshine and went to Cambridge for the first time, enjoying some pimms and punting. I rounded off the lot with another London trip! This time it was me and the girls and we went hard on the drinking at bottomless brunch (and beyond), and then had a very funny hungover sunday dragging ourselves round Portobello Road market.

1 ladies day at the races

I love a good day at the races and this year, me and the girls headed to Ladies Day at Nottingham race course. I didn't manage to pick any serious winners this time (normally I get a bit lucky), but we did manage to drink our bodyweight in pimms and prosecco so who's the real winner here?

27 years on earth celebrated

It's kind of an annual thing so you should hardly be surprised that I celebrated another birthday! This year I turned 27 and I had a fabulous time (as always) celebrating with lots of meals out, nights out and date nights. Although I am now officially in my late twenties I reckon, so I went over the hill in 2023.

2 languages learned

My 2021 New Years Resolution finally took hold this year! I've been meaning to learn French and Spanish for a couple of years now and this year I really got into it. I say 'learned' in the sense that I began learning, in the past tense. Not 'learned' in the sense of 'completed it mate' since I obviously am not yet fluent in both languages. But I've made really good progress and I definitely want to keep learning until I really can say 'completed it mate'.

18 new restaurants tried

Okay so I didn't think you needed 18 pictures of plates of food, hence I've included a small selection! But in case you'd like the full list of restaurants I tried for the first time, here it is: Colombo street, Taphouse, Cosy club, The wine room, Suede, Viet80s, The mixing house, Rosa's thai, Hockley arts club afternoon tea, Pizzamisu, Kellari, Mollis, Pizza pilgrims, Niccos, Kushi-ya, Seven, Haveli, and Lobster pot. That doesn't even account for the ones I was a returning customer at either OR those that I went to on holiday or on my city break trips. This is just local, Nottingham/Derby goodness. So it's safe to say that I've eaten well this year!

1 racing car day

I love doing things that are a bit different, and this summer me, Ollie, Dad and Aidan went for a guys day out to drive some race cars. It was so much fun and I really loved the aerial atom. Plus, I proved the stereotype of bad female drivers wrong, as I scored the same or higher as all the men. So there.

9 work events

I was feeling in a very good place about my job this time last year, however I had only just started in the October. So it could've just been the honeymoon phase? But no, I can now say with absolute confidence that I love my job, I'm super happy there and I've had an incredible year. Not only have I achieved a lot, learnt a lot, and done a hell of a lot, but I've also managed to pack in 9 different events. They were a mix of social ones, team ones and business ones. Social-wise, we had a kickoff day in March at Roxy Ballroom, a summer party with scavenger hunt and burger van in June, a highly anticipated sports day in August, a trip to the Nottingham Beer Festival in October and then the Christmas party in December, where we had awards, present raffle and an amazing meal at Baresca. Team events included a smarketing day of our two teams, bookended with a chef's table experience at Gusto, as well as a trip to the Festival of Marketing conference in London. And business events saw us go to exhibit in London in June, and then in Manchester in November and while they're super hard work and a lot of planning (done by me) goes into them, they also then involve fun meals and nights out too.

1 wedding attended

The very special weekend in Milan that I mentioned? It was for the wedding of my best friend in all the world, Laura. Everything about the weekend was absolutely perfect, from Laura's beautiful dress, to the unexpected November sunshine, to the gigantic seafood dinner we went for. While there may have been enough food to feed the five thousand, it was actually a super intimate wedding of only 16 people including Laura and Fulvio themselves, and I was the only non-family guest invited. I was SO honoured and excited to be invited and to be able to be a part of their special day. Although, it does seem only right, as who knows if the day could even have happened without me - I'm the one who introduced them! Back on a girls holiday in Mykonos, me and Laura were at a beach club and the DJ had asked everyone to shout if they were Italian, and almost everyone had. We were chatting about how it was crazy how many Italians were there, and I spotted a group that I said I bet were British. Laura said no, they definitely looked Italian. So I tapped one of them on the shoulder to find out where they were from; not only was Laura right, but the guy I tapped on the shoulder is now her husband. Funny how things turn out! I've included a photo from the first day we all met for a 'how it started vs how it's going' type of effect. Also side note; it wasn't Fulvio himself (who looks very Italian) who I thought looked British - one of his friends is quite blond and that's what led me down the garden path. I'm not completely stupid! Anyway. Laura, watching you meet and fall in love with Fulvio has been one of the great joys of my life. Honestly, words can never explain the second hand happiness that I have over seeing my best friend so happy and treated so well and living her best life. So while I'm sad to have had to wave her off and be separated by 940 miles, I know that she's never really far away. Plus, it just means I now have to go to Italy every couple of months to see them. It's a hard life, but someone has to do it.

3 (ish) New Years resolutions achieved

I like to make resolutions every year (as you'll know if you always read my end of year posts) and last year I made 4 in total: 1. to learn French and Spanish, 2. recommit to getting the house sorted, 3. get back on it with my blog, and 4. visit more than 5 new countries. As previously mentioned, I finally stuck to the language learning, so number 1 gets a big tick. Number 2 is an interesting one and I managed it in a different way than I imagined when I made it. More to come on that later (stay tuned folks). I have to say that I probably failed at number 3, given that I managed even fewer blog posts this year than the previous one. But we're going with quality over quantity, so we won't worry too much about that. Ending on a positive note, number 4 on the resolutions list gets a big fat tick! Having been to 5 new countries per year in 2021 and 2022, I was on a mission this year to beat that record. And I managed... drum roll please... 7 new countries in 2023!

3 New Years resolutions made

Naturally, I'll be making some new resolutions for the year ahead. I've gone with a magic number of resolutions this time.

1. Take up hot yoga

This one I've technically already started as I reasoned that as a yoga newbie, I wanted to go while it was quiet so I could start to learn it before the rush of New Year health-kickers in January. So far I'm enjoying it! After not renewing my gym membership this year, I wanted to find a fitness activity for 2024 that I really enjoyed. When I did go to the gym, it was out of discipline rather than because I actually enjoyed it. I kept waiting to fall in love with it but the sensation never came. Here's to hoping that hot yoga is my thing.

2. Pick up Italian

Once you've learned one romantic language, you've learned them all? Now that Italy is closer to my heart than ever (thanks to Laura), and I plan to travel there a lot, I figured it was about time I add Italian to my roster of languages being learned. From the tiny bit of Italian I already know, I know it's very similar to Spanish and French so I'm hoping that I have a lot of transferable knowledge already that makes it easier to learn. Plus, I'll have plenty of time in Italy to practise!

3. Straighten teeth

I had braces when I was 11 years old, which is pretty young by UK standards but my dentist was Scandinavian and apparently they advocate for doing it young there. Which was great at the time! But it also means my teeth have had plenty of time in adulthood to go astray again (even with many years of retainer wearing). They're still pretty straight, but there's just one or two teeth in the front that I'd like to be straighter. So next year, I'm going to get them back in line and get me that Hollywood smile.

∞ fun had

The limit basically does not exist. 2023 has been a really hard year for me and there's been a lot of emotional turmoil for reasons I haven't gone into yet but I will very soon (oh isn't she mysterious). But when I look back on the past year, all I can focus on is how much fun I've had. There's been drag bingo, make-a-cocktail-based-on-your-job night, bottomless afternoon tea, charity leg waxing, prosecco picnics, coffee dates, cinema trips, and endless laughter. I'm once again going into a new year surrounded by the most incredible people who make me smile when I'm sad, who make even the most mundane things seem more exciting, and who encourage all of my drink top-ups and doing-it-for-the-plot life decisions. 2024 is going to be a big year of change for me but I'm really looking forward to what it has in store.