A big highlight: *Finally* making it to Japan, a dream decades in the making. It was worth the hype and lived up to every expectation.

A lowlight: My grandma passed away in September and while she had been struggling with her health for a long while, it was still a huge shock. I don’t think I properly grieved in the immediate aftermath as there was a lot of chaos surrounding it, and a lot of people who needed looking after. Still working through it.

Biggest surprise: With death comes life. My gorgeous niece was born only shortly after grandma died. She’s the sweetest, smallest little bub, and I love her so much.

Biggest change: Switching my job role again at the start of January. My previous role was moved to California and so I was asked to move to support a new area. I had been hoping for more job stability but it wasn’t to be. Luckily, I’ve now been in role for a year and currently am still going to be in the same area for 2026, so it’s looking good that I’ll be in the same team for over 12 months this time round!

Favourite moment: This was a HUGE year of countless, amazing moments. One beautiful moment that stands out though is when my gorgeous nephew, Harley, snuggled up to me recently and told me how much he loves me. Those are the moments that mean the most.

Some other highlights to shout about:

• Going to Amangiri in June and having the absolute best time
• Paris for my birthday, and Florence for Lu’s
• Buying a dream car
• Doing even more home renovation – our lower ground floor is now fully complete and looks INSANE

Life List items completed:

• Visit 50 different countries and territories
• Visit 30 European countries:
  • Poland
• Visit 15 different Asian countries:
  • Japan
    • Go on a bullet train in Japan
    • See Mount Fuji in Japan
• Visit all 50 States of America:
  • Texas
  • Utah
  • Visit Antelope Canyon, Arizona
• Visit every country in South America
  • Argentina
  • Have a real Argentinean steak in Argentina
• Make a terrarium
• Buy a luxury car
• Stay at the best luxury hotels…
  • Amangiri
  • Amanemu
  • Four Seasons George V, Paris
  • Four Seasons Florence
  • Four Seasons Hampshire
  • Ritz Carlton Nikko
  • Ritz Carlton Kyoto
• Go to a film premiere
• See Beyonce in concert (again!)
• Finish the Lower Ground Floor
• Flying to Paris for a luxury shopping weekend for my birthday
• Become an auntie again
• Celebrate Friendsgiving
• Experience being a VIP guest at Louis Vuitton

We stayed for 3 nights, and in that time were able to go on 6 separate game drives. The typical routine was one very early morning drive, around 5am, to get the animals as they started their day, and then an afternoon drive that would often last until the sun set. In between the drives, you were able to relax, nap, eat enjoy the excellent facilities – mostly for me, I spent the time reviewing the photos I had taken!

Some reflections about the game drives were:

Be prepared for it to be cold in the vehicle!

I didn’t *quite* dress as appropriately as I could have, especially for the early morning drives. If I was going again, I would pack some thicker clothes. Luckily, Shamwari provided blankets in the vehicle which was super helpful, but particularly on the windier mornings, more layers would have been amazing.

Don’t be disappointed if you don’t get the perfect shot

There were quite a few moments that I was hoping for the stars to align to get a specific shot – some of them paid off and some of them didn’t. To avoid feeling disappointed, I had to remind myself that there’ll be plenty of opportunities while you’re there, and even if you never quite get exactly what you want – at the end of the day, its part of the magic of wild animals and safari to be so out of control.

Be on the lookout for the big and small.

It can be very easy to be training your eyes all the time to find a lion but then missing some of the smaller, but mighty wildlife around you. Noticing the beautiful birds, the little warthogs, and even rabbits that were around us were some of the little moments of joy and awe that I loved.

Your guide is a font of knowledge.

Our guide, Keenan, was an amazingly knowledgeable ranger and an all-round nice human. His expertise made our game drives 1000x more interesting and exciting. Looking back, I would have loved to spend even more time asking him questions about the animals and the habitat.

I am SO thankful I got to live my safari dreams at Shamwari, and really got the bug – I’d love to do it all again. Watch this space!

Here are some of my most favourite shots of animals at Shamwari:

Like 2022, it was another year of incredible blessings, its stressful moments, but ultimately a ton of adventures and new experiences. A summary of the year would look like:

A big highlight: Safari in South Africa, finally ticking off one of the longest-standing life list items!

A lowlight: Health challenges for my Grandma and supporting my Grandpa through these

Biggest surprise: Getting a nephew! Born in March, and I fell in love instantly. It’s been incredible to watch him grow so fast already and I can’t wait to be the best auntie in the whole world!

Biggest change: Switching my job role again towards the end of 2023.

Favourite moment: Honestly, any time I was on my cosy sofa, snuggled up with Zola and Lu <3

Some other highlights to shout about:

• Creating a 3 course meal for Lu for Valentine’s Day
• Harley being born!
• My birthday trip to the Landmark
• Trip to Las Vegas, plus seeing Usher up close!
• Weekend trip to Venice including gondolas!
• Renovating the primary bedroom
• Seeing Beyonce’s Renaissance tour
• Going to watch the Formula One at Silverstone
• Two weddings this year!
• Seeing Hamilton on Broadway in NYC
• Trip to Lanzarote
• Quick trip to Malta
• Quick trip to Iceland
• Safari and Garden Route in South Africa

Life List items completed:

• Go on safari in Africa
• Visit Washington State in the US (All 50 states)
• Go on a gondola in Venice
• Visit South Africa (5 African countries)
• Drive the garden route in South Africa
• Going to watch the Formula One at Silverstone
• See Beyonce in concert
• Watch a real live rodeo
• Renovate a bedroom from scratch
• Celebrate my birthday by staying at The Landmark
• Become an auntie!
• Visit Malta
• See Usher in concert
• Eat at Frog, by Adam Handling

The one takeaway I had was that Malta is such an interesting country, and felt like a mix of a few different cultures. We stayed in St Julian, and visited Mdina, but apart from that because of our short trip length, we didn’t get to see more of the country. I would love to go back and see more of Malta.

Here’s a bit of a picture book look at our quick weekend getaway!

Coming from a small flat where our Queen bed basically touched the walls on both sides, just the idea of having more space to utilise in the bedroom felt like a dream. And the dream was going to be reality: the primary bedroom in the new house not only fit a Super King bed, but also had room to spare.

When we viewed the house, this was what the primary bedroom looked like:

You can get a sense of the space I’m talking about, but obviously the room itself was in need of a lot of love and care.

The vibe I wanted to go for was cosy, inviting, and feminine, heavy emphasis on the cosy. It also needed to be a place where I could relax beyond sleeping, so I was really keen to get a TV unit in there.

One thing it didn’t need to do was be a place for storage. The existing bedroom had tons of cupboards lining one wall, but because we had renovated one of the other bedrooms into a walk-in wardrobe, we just didn’t need a lot of storage in there.

This is how the bedroom turned out:

I went for a simple white colour scheme, with pops of pink and gold accents to give a feminine feel. The cosiness came from the textures we used – the Gubi Pacha lounge chair is the softest sheepskin, as well as the brand new carpet that feels so luxurious through your toes!

The media unit was a big element of the new room, as I love nothing more than curling up in bed and watching something. It also gave an opportunity to add some visual interest through the open shelving, and a overspill for my bag collection:

One last detail to highlight is some of the artwork that we added, with those lovely gold details, bringing more of the feminine feel into the room.

I’m so so so happy with how this turned out. It’s perfectly functional for my needs but emphasises cosiness and femininity above all. A huge improvement on what was there already, if I do say myself!

On the positive side, I was very pleased to be able to travel to Seattle, Washington for work this year, because I had never visited Washington state before, and thus, it enabled me to tick this state off my list!

On the not-so-positive side, because this was a work trip, I didn’t really get to see very much of Seattle, or indeed Washington state. So there are definitely going to need to be follow-up trips in the future!

In terms of my trip itself, I was only in Seattle for 3 days, and my sightseeing basically involved going to my employer’s offices (and the Microsoft campus!).

For now, I’ll share a very curated selection of photos just to record the fact that I was there, though I don’t expect this to be a very interesting photographic update for anyone!

We decided to splurge and do this in relative style, by getting tickets to the Fusion Club VIP experience which included access to 2 days (Saturday prelims and the Sunday race itself), as well as to food, drinks, and entertainment!

The Fusion Club itself was nice! Good food and service, and some fun things to do like an F1 simulator, as well as live music. You also had a good opportunity to overlook the race track, however the seating was very limited and a bit of a free for all, so it ended up being a bit more stressful than we would’ve liked to make sure you were in a good position for the races.

Some photos of the overall Fusion Club experience:

In terms of the race itself, I was absolutely rooting for Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz, my two faves, all the way! Unfortunately, Verstappen took the win, as per usual

We came away thinking that wouldn’t do the Fusion Club experience specifically again, although we are open to going back to the F1 again. We just need to figure out how we can do without the spectator seating stress!

So in June 2023, off we went to Venice! I’ll do another full write-up about the trip as a whole, but as this life list item was specifically about gondolas, this is what this post is going to focus on!

I was exceptionally excited to get on the gondola, but the first hurdle is actually getting on one, given the vast hordes of tourists who all want to do the same! It is, of course, not cheap either, but we decided to splurge on a private boat, and the longest route because of what a highlight of our Venice trip it was going to be.

We got on our gondola from the station in Piazza San Marco, not for any particular reason but just because we happened across it and there wasn’t a big queue! The gondolas themselves are very pretty and decorated very ornately, and surprisingly comfy honestly, with pillows and padded seats!

I really liked our gondolier, because he mostly gave us our privacy but also engaged in some cheeky banter occasionally, and he also shared some good tidbits of info about Venice as we were paddling along.

For me, the main highlight of the experience was seeing Venice from the canals. It was fascinating to see both the big tourist icons but also just daily local life happening from the gondola seat. It doesn’t hurt that the winding Venetian canals are incredibly picturesque – I took so many photos!

Here are some photographic highlights from our trip:

All in all, I highly recommend taking a gondola trip when you are in Venice. Don’t be put off by the crowds or by the prices, it truly is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that can’t be replicated anywhere else (not even in the gondolas of The Venetian in Vegas! )

This is me sitting outside the stadium waiting to be let in, and realising that I absolutely should’ve upped my outfit game, because everyone was dressed in the most amazing sparkly outfits, and I had gone boring basic

We finally got in, and had some complimentary food and drinks that were included with our VIP package, and then made our way to our seats. The atmosphere was absolutely electric and I was so excited for it to start!

Finally, it was time for the Queen herself to join us. Here are a selection of photos from the best night!

The entire concert from start to finish was obviously PERFECTION, but if I had to pick, my fave songs she performed were:

• I’m That Girl
• Alien Superstar
• Break My Soul
• Formation
• My Power
• Crazy in Love
• America Has A Problem

If I could describe the show in three words, it would be: sexy, energetic and a BOP! It was an awesome show, with Usher showcasing all of his huge hits, and taking the sex appeal up to the max through the staging, dancers and outfits (or lack thereof!)

We stayed out of our seats throughout the whole thing, especially when Usher himself came into the audience and stood LITERALLY RIGHT NEXT TO US! Highlight for sure!

Here are some pictures that should give you a feel for this 10/10 show: