Year in Review 2016

All in all, I'd say 2016 was a very good year for me.

I hadn't done much travel the year before so I made it my mission in 2016 to travel a lot more. And I certainly did that. 

The year began with an extended weekend to Venice and Bologna which was Ollie's 30th birthday present. We ate so well in Venice and it was a lot of fun. Not long afterwards we headed off on a 3 week trip to Costa Rica. It was a brilliant experience. Among the many highlights I bravely went zip lining for the first time. For Easter I was in France celebrating Kris' 40th birthday in France, and then we spent a very relaxed weekend in Kabak Bay, Turkey. Other weekends away were to Margate for my birthday, Vienna to see Dunja, and Gothenburg for Stuart's 40th. Ollie and I spent a week holidaying in Croatia and Slovenia around Dunja and Marcus' wedding. It was a very special occasion and I was a bridesmaid for Dunja. Towards the end of the year, I even squeezed in a short trip to Australia. One of the year's highlights came at the end of the year with a week in Iceland with Ollie, Stuart and Kris. We saw the phenomenal Northern Lights which had been a dream of mine for a long time. The year was capped off with a trip to Germany for the Christmas markets.

All the travel meant there wasn't actually a lot of time in London! 

Ollie and I enjoyed living in our Finsbury Park flat. We spent quite a bit of time locally, here and in neighbouring Crouch End, for lots of brunches and dinners. There were regular trips to the cinema, a few games of scrabble, and in summer, a picnic and and Street Feast. I kept up with pilates each week, and then twice a week.  A couple of other highlights included whizzing down the Anish Kapoor slide in the Olympic Park for Ollie's birthday and Stu and Kris' 'Gloufstubury' house party in lieu of the actual Glastonbury.

Culture-wise my favourite exhibitions were Georgia O'Keeffe at the Tate Modern and Sunken Cities Egypt's Lost Worlds at the British Museum. And favourite gigs were seeing Kelis at the jazz club, and Michael Kiwanuka.

There were so many amazing meals during the year. A few stand out. Long lunches at Petersham's Nurseries and Dabbous. A spur of the moment Friday night dinner at Barrafina. Brunch at Bistroteque. The Christmas dinner Ollie and I had at the Icelandic restaurant, Texture was excellent. Fera at Claridges where David and I had lunch on his visit had a beautiful dining room and cooking. In Margate we went to cute little, surprisingly good seafood restaurant called Hantverk & Found.

It wasn't all play though! I did work hard as well. In April I was promoted to Business Director which I was really pleased about because I had been working towards it for a long time. Ollie and I celebrated with cocktails at the Fumoir in Claridges and a delicious dinner at Social Eating House. After one of my Sony Mobile clients moved to a new company we got a new client when we started working for them too. By the end of the year I was working on Sony Mobile, Colart, and also Virgin Trains with a team double the size.

I didn't set any clear objectives for 2016. But using the Walne* categories, I thought I'd score myself anyway...

Home - 10/10 - It was a great first year in our flat in Finsbury Park
Love, Family & Friends - 8/10 - Always room for improvement 
Leisure - 7/10 - I need to get a bit more work life balance
Travel - 10/10 - Yay! So much travel!
Career - 10/10 - I got promoted ;-)
Finance - 5/10 - I didn't save much with all that travel
Health & Well Being - 7/10 - I went to pilates regularly, didn't start running yet, but made lots of healthy packed lunches to take to work
Learning & Development - 3/10 - I didn't do much proactively on this front

January has whizzed by and it's somehow February already! I've already been away for a weekend to Liverpool with Laura and Jaimee and seen the Wildlife Exhibition with Ollie so 2017 is off to a good start. Time to start booking holidays!


*My friend Damian Walne's system for setting annual life objectives.