03/02/2026
Happy February with a much needed January review!
I started 2026 with a promise to give January a little more love because let’s be honest, this month gets far too much hate. Some of it deserved, especially when the festive lights come down and the gloom creeps in.
We were lucky enough to end 2025 with friends and begin 2026 the same way, and honestly, I wouldn’t mind turning that into a tradition.
January gifted us snow in Coventry! brief, beautiful, and gone too soon, like all good things. January also saw months of planning for that one event in the heart of Westminster.
Somewhere in between, I was greeted by the sweetest 7-year-old playing me a little birthday tune, yet another reason to show this long month some grace. I woke up another year older, but I don’t feel older. I just feel layered.
Maybe birthdays aren’t about ageing, but about remembering all the versions of ourselves that existed and still do.
Call it a midlife crisis or finally putting that passport to good use, but I took my first solo trip across the channel and ate my body weight in French pastries. Paris, I’m coming back for you.
And because January clearly wasn’t hectic enough, we squeezed in a stopover in Istanbul before one of the most important trips of our lives.
Did we overpack our day? ✔️
Did the city overwhelm me? ✔️
Do all the mosques look a little alike yet somehow each one still breathtaking? ✔️
January, maybe you’re not so bad after all.
Now, to the best part of the year- returning to my birth city which deserve a whole different post or posts!