Past the 6 month mark

I've now been in the UK for over 6 months - woohoo!! A milestone for me as this is the longest time I've been away from home in one go. Definitely no plans on coming home just yet though - I fully intend to use those two precious Working Holiday Visa years to their max. It's a reminder of how fast time flies though - only 18 months left!

After a very mild few weeks after Christmas the weather has now woken up and realised that it wasn't really cold enough for Winter - so the last week has been pretty freezing, with a couple of snowy days thrown in for good measure. It's been quite weird for me as I think I'm still clinging onto the Autumn...time has flown by so fast that I haven't caught up with it yet. It still feels like November or something.

I overheard someone talking about snow in London and saying 'It's just snow...what; as it's London snow is it supposed to be more sophisticated or something??' True hehe, it is just snow, the same as anywhere else. But I don't think anyone can deny that little jolt of excitement and wonder of your five year old self when you see that it's snowing - especially in a new place. What I love most about snow is looking out at night when it's stopped snowing, and everything has that amazing calm, stillness and quietness. Beautiful anytime. Yay snow!! :)

So with the start of the new year comes the fun job of finding and writing in a new diary (no sarcasm here, I really enjoy this haha). Stationery shopping is always fun anyway, but buying a new diary has that extra element of having to find the right one - one that fits you so you will actually use it. Then when you've found the perfect one you can sit back with a cuppa and, with the weird excitement of writing on a brand new page, transfer any important stuff like birthdays over from old to new. What I most like about this process is taking the chance to read through all the stuff you've done in the previous year, and basically reliving the memory at every entry. This year I got a massive buzz after reading things like 'three months to go,' 'one week to go!!!' and 'arrive in London!!!!!!!' The beginning of an experience of a life time...I was so suprised at how much I crammed into those first few months. Of course it helped that it was summer so it was easy to be out late just going and doing stuff (compared to now when I sometimes feel like I haven't been doing much at all - but that's normal for winter). Anyway, just made me think about the coming year and all the sights and shows and people and memories to come.

Here's to having a packed diary to read next January!! 

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

Oscar Wilde