Monthly Musings: January 2023
Hello friends! Happy new year and happy January! Welcome to our first chatter post of the year, Monthly Musings: January 2023! Gosh, I feel like we have so much to catch up on! Can you actually believe it’s 2023 already? It’s so wild! The last few months just zoomed on by, and now that we’re here, I’m looking to slow things down to a somewhat acceptable pace. I must say, even though I can’t really believe it’s the new year already, I feel in my bones that 2023 is going to be a good year. There’s just so much to look forward to! This is the year Fiancé & I both have milestone birthdays, and not to mention, the year we get MARRIED. Side note: I totally have to get back to wedding and honeymoon planning! I may have slightly dropped the ball over the Christmas break, but time’s a-ticking!
monthly musings: january 2023
But seriously – did you have a good holiday break? I know it’s a big statement to make, but I had the most loveliest Christmas/New Year’s in recent memory. Highlights include: puppy cuddles, Christmas dinner featuring potentially the best roasties I’ve ever tasted, epic leftover sandwiches, festive socks for all, movies aplenty, a lightly competitive game of pool, and so many wonderful little moments in between. It was so perfect! Also, I know Christmas isn’t about gifts – but I totally got some great ones this year! Wonderful foodstuffs, lovely bottles of vino, sumptuous smelling candles, a cookbook I’ve been eyeing up for months, and an old school polaroid camera, to name a few. Feeling so loved and grateful ❤️
Our Monthly Musings: January 2023 post is below. It’s filled with all the usual suspects, but I’ve also used it as a space to recall some 2022 highlights. Enjoy, friends!
monthly musings: january 2023
Covid-19 update: the cases are going up, and the hospitals are overwhelmed. Apparently there’s an extremely high level of both the flu virus and Covid-19 going around, so they’re asking people to avoid A&E unless absolutely necessary. Uyy. The only good news is that they’re finally offering the second booster dose to those aged 18 and up. About bloody time!
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If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that Fiancé’s birthday is on New Year’s Eve. Following the trend that Covid-19 forced us into, but now we actually enjoy, we spent it at home alone together. We went out for brunch, walked the seafront, watched Fiancé’s favourite film, enjoyed a spritz or two, and devoured Molly’s mac & cheese for dinner. For our birthday cake needs, I whipped up a giant batch of rice krispie squares, adorned them with gold leaf, attempted to stick candles on top, and sang a terrible rendition of Happy Birthday by my lonesome. Celebrating my favourite person all weekend long was pretty dang fun 🙂
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I finished up my December-only part-time job at the end of the month. Since finishing up, I’ve come to the conclusion that working in the retail sector isn’t really for me. It just wasn’t…. stimulating enough? Anyways, it was good to dip my toe back into employment for a hot second and have a little extra cash for Christmas. And now that it’s over, it’s back to being self-unemployed 😉
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Did you make any new year’s resolutions? I don’t normally go in for them, but I’m carrying my one from last year over into this year: travel more. Last year I set myself the goal of visiting 30 countries before I turn 30, and I’m determined to make it happen. As of today, I have a grand total of 241-days left before I turn 30, and I’ve still got 3 countries to go. Think I can do it? The fact that I don’t have any concrete travel plans for the year ahead is causing me more than a little anxiety, but I’m looking to remedy this asap.
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Friends, our trip to Italy last month turned into QUITE the travel saga. A light dusting of ice/frost descended on Dublin the morning of our flight, and basically everything came to a standstill. There was only one functioning de-icer, and flights were being cancelled all around us. Thankfully, we weren’t cancelled – just delayed for 5+ hours(!) – but Dublin airport was absolute pandemonium with angry, drunken, exhausted passengers. It was awful and we were glad to have it behind us – but our travel woes didn’t end there. Three days later, when we were due to fly home, the aforementioned ice/frost was still causing chaos in Dublin, and our flight was cancelled an hour before takeoff. Many many hours in the helpdesk queue later, we were transferred onto a flight two days later, and brought to a hotel paid for & organized by Ryanair. It was a major organizational stress, but it was also pretty great having an extra two days in Italy. Silver linings!
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Related: did you read my Festive Florence post? Florence in December was a true revelation; I think I might even like it better than Florence in the summer! It was much more dressed up for the holidays than I imagined it would be, and it was so! beautiful! Christmas market huts littered around, twinkly lights draped across the most beautiful streets, and a magical quality in the air. There was also a very pleasing lack of annoying tourists around. Thanks to our delayed flight home, we also got to spend an unexpected two days exploring Pisa, which we loved! I’m hoping to share a travel guide to the city before the end of the month, so keep your eyes peeled!
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While we’re on the subject of travel, here’s a little personal travel recap. I visited five different countries last year, which, while nowhere near my personal best of eleven countries in 2012, is still pretty great! I stepped foot on two continents, took ten flights between seven airports, explored twelve cities/towns/villages, and shared fifteen new travel guides. All in all, pretty good, no? Especially when you take into account the fact that we’re still living through a pandemic! 2023 has a lot to live up to!
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Related: it’d be downright sacrilegious to write the above paragraph without sharing some of my favourite travel guides of the last year. From Luxembourg, it’s gotta be my Long Weekend in Luxembourg City post, although my Visiting Vianden post isn’t far behind. Next, I shared the only Irish guide of the year – A Return to Westport, Ireland – which I’m weirdly proud of. After that, I shared five new Italian guides; all of which I love, but these two tie for first place: Three Days in Florence, Italy and Our Engagement in Bologna, Italy. Germany was up next with A Stopover in Cologne, Germany, a short but sweet post. Last but not least, we had Canada, where my two favourite posts coincided with the two places I loved the most: Exploring Summerside, Prince Edward Island and Eating Our Way Around Halifax, Nova Scotia. Did you have a favourite travel guide?
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Thanks to Letterboxd I can easily see the 2022 films we saw & what we thought of them. Handy! Dandy! Buckle up, because there’s no real rhythm or reason to the way these will be written. I rather liked X, but not Pearl. My family and I watched Strange World over Christmas and really enjoyed it. I thought Thirteen Lives was fab. Fiancé’s film, The Accursed, was truly beyond exciting to watch. The Banshees of Inisherin was funny, but I’d never watch it again. I shamelessly enjoyed The Lost City, Dog, Do Revenge, and Scream 5. The biggest disappointments of the year for us included Barbarian, Smile, Fresh, and Luckiest Girl Alive – the last two especially. What was on your hit/miss film list?
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Are you reading anything fantastic at the moment? Last year I read a grand total of 23 books and there are some real standouts in my mind. I loved everything I read from Taylor Jenkins Reid – but especially Carrie Soto Is Back. American Dirt, one of the very first books I read last year, is one I still think of regularly and would recommend to everyone. I also absolutely loved Mad Honey; the storyline was unlike any I’ve read before and it was extremely well written. Do you have any standouts from last year? I’m currently reading Into the Black Nowhere, the second book in the UNSUB series, and it’s pretty good so far!
And there we have it, our Monthly Musings: January 2023 post! Wow, the length of it got slightly away from me there, but I just had so much I wanted to write about! Let’s catch up again in February, yeah? I promise to keep it a little shorter!
My love to you,
Vicki xo
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