2014

Happy New Year you lovely lot! Where on earth did the last two weeks go? Someone has been playing magic tricks with my time I think. I would very much like another 2 weeks off but I guess that’s all kinds of greedy? Yeah, thought so.

Before I settle back into blogging for 2015, and tell you about our Christmas/New Year shenanigans, I thought I’d take a look back at 2014. It’s been a good one!

We began 2014 waking up in one of our favourite places, Northumberland. Starting the New Year by the seaside, where I spent most of my childhood holidays, really helped blow the 2013 cobwebs away. My favourite moment was walking on the beach at Bamburgh on New Year’s Day.

We saw Bill Callahan in February which cemented my complete fascination with the man. I love his voice so much. Other 2014 gig highlights were Neutral Milk Hotel, Maximo Park and Peter Hook and The Light. My favourite gig moment was the OH looking at me during Neutral Milk Hotel in absolute awe of them.

We haven’t been on holiday for a couple of years now but we did manage to get away for a few weekends in the UK. In March we visited Shrewsbury for a blog collaboration and we had the best time. As neither of us drive we normally stick to places we can get to easily via train (York, Manchester etc) but I think our next long weekend getaway we’ll try somewhere further afield. Shrewsbury was a great reminder to always try new destinations! My favourite moment of Shrewsbury was dinner at the Peach Tree Restaurant; we couldn’t stop smiling it was so delicious!

Having said all that we did pop to York for my birthday in March and it turned out to be one of the first sunniest weekends of the year. One of my favourite moments was grabbing a takeaway coffee with the OH and sitting under York Minster in the sunshine, watching the world go by.

April sprung up to say hello and we began exploring more of Hebden Bridge. One of my favourite things about living in the Calder Valley is how beautiful it is during all the seasons. I’ll always be grateful for this little corner of the earth. It’s magical.

Blogtacular! It was so much fun learning, listening and talking to bloggers across the UK and beyond, and the Photo Walk with Xanthe Berkeley was an absolute treat. I always get ridiculously nervous when I meet new people (awkward to the core) but I needn’t have worried. The whole event provided much-needed inspiration for this little blog of mine, along with a new Photo Walk feature which I’m picking up again in 2015.

Then came the second part of the year, and the most life changing. We started to look for our very own house. Little did we know we’d find our dream home in a matter of weeks, right here in Hebden Bridge. What came next was a couple of months of stressful house buying nonsense. My favourite part of it, now I know it’s ours, is how fiercely protective I got of our home. It felt like it was meant to be ours from the moment we saw it together.

Le Tour De France came to Hebbers! The whole town turned into a carnival atmosphere during the weekend of the Grand Depart with bunting and yellow bikes adorning the route and in the town. It was great to be apart of it and it was a summer highlight I’ll never forget.

We bought a house! You will not believe how stressed I was the week we were supposed to complete. At one point we thought the sale was going to fall through due to an error the bank had made. Let’s just say I cried a lot that week. I will never forget collecting the keys with the OH (whilst stopping to pick up Prosecco along the way) and thinking how we were the luckiest people in the whole world. Best day of my life.

During all the house buying excitement, I also started two new jobs. Firstly, working part-time as the marketing officer at our local independent cinema (dream job!), and secondly securing regular freelance writing work as a Home and Garden feature writer for the Most Wanted Blog, for VoucherCodes (another dream job!). I still can’t believe I get to work at a cinema, write about interiors AND work from home for a living. Hard work definitely pays off my friends and lots (and lots) of perseverance!

In September I was back in London for the second time that year working on a blog collaboration. I was feeling pretty ill at the time, having just moved (and in the flux of two new jobs), but I still travelled down on that train feeling grateful for every opportunity this blog springs up.

Back at home, we began to make a start on making our house a home. We still have lots of boxes in the office which are going in our attic bedroom once we have storage fitted. But overall it feels like ours…I may have been on eBay a lot over Christmas. More on that later!

Things began to settle down in November and I ended up actually having weekends off again, which were normally spent working. Working 5 days a week only is definitely on my to do list going forward! More walks, books and general merriment!

More London exploring with the OH for his birthday. It was the perfect time to stop and talk about our year, which we did at length. We had some bad news regarding my dad’s health during this time so it was nice to get away and just process it all.

My favourite photograph of the year; a Polaroid of the OH and I having tea out with family. This was a few weeks before we got the keys to our home, and I remember feeling very fortunate for family giving us lots of moral support during a pretty stressful time. It was all worth it of course.

We now have a home that makes me happy every single minute of every single day. We have neighbours we now call friends, we have family and friends over to stay (and Candy the dog!), and it’s ours. I can’t describe how fortunate I feel and how darn grateful I am to have everything I have in my life right now. There are always going to be things I can’t control, especially health wise, so I’m taking note of all awesomeness there is and will be concentrating on that.

Other 2014 highlights included:

• Getting Glastonbury tickets for 2015. SO. EXCITED.
• Watching the niece and nephew grow up
• Getting Belle and Sebastian, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Jimi Goodwin tickets
• Hebden Bridge Handmade Parade in the summer
• Neighbourhood bonfire
• Watching Withnail and I at the cinema
• Enjoying our first open fire at home
• Blogging. Coming into my fifth year and I still love it.
• New Year’s Eve party at home (and dancing my ass off!)
• Getting roller skates for Christmas!

2014, I will never forget you. 2015, let’s do this!

P.S 5 Positive Things To Do This Week back next week

♥