2019 has been a mix of an emotions for me. When I look back, recently, I’ve been looking at it from a super positive aspect. Mainly because the last 4 months of the year have been incredible. However, the rest of the year, was such a mix for me.
I thought to sum up the year, I would write a little post, mainly for me, as I want to remember all the good times and the bad, as it shows me how far I have come.
So, go fetch yourself a cuppa and some snacks cause this is going to be a long one!
January 2019
I started the year sat in the living room playing board games with my Mum. This year, I even had a glass of gin (I know right, pushing the boat out!). I’ve never been one for alcohol and partying, but Mum and I bought ourselves a tiny bottle of gin each and lemonade for the occasion.
To be quite honest with you, the start of January was pretty ordinary for me (not that it’s a bad thing!). Every Tuesday I would go and see Emma and her son Benjamin for a movie day with plenty of snacks!
I also went on my first Disney trip of the year to Disneyland Paris! This was for Star Wars, Season of the Force and Pirate and Princess. It was also my first time staying on site at Disney since I was a little girl. I stayed in the Sequoia Lodge which was super lovely. It was defiantly a lot of money for what it is, but I really enjoyed my time there. On my last day there, it actually snowed. It was so magical! I’d always wanted to be in Disneyland for real snow and my dream came true! It was a little difficult going home the next morning as everything was icy, however I managed to catch a super early train to the airport and catch my flight with no major problems!
At the very end of the month, I had my interview for university to study film production at the Arts University Bournemouth. I knew already at this point hat I had 2 unconditional offers to study film production at other universities, however deep down, I knew I didn’t want to go to either. Maybe that was why I was super nervous for my interview. I had spent the rest of the month planning my portfolio to make sure I had enough stuff to help me to get in.
When the day of the interview came, I was a nervous wreck! My Mum had taken the morning off of work so she could take me. I’m super grateful she did cause there was no way that I was able to drive. We went for a cup of tea to calm the nerves (which did not help!) and eventally, Mum and I were split up and I had to go in on my own.
Honestly, I don’t think I have ever been so nervous in all of my life. As soon as I walked into the interview room, my mouth went dry. It was horrible! I could barely talk. Thankfully, they wanted to see my showreel so that meant I had about three minutes to try and find some words to say to impress these people enough to let me in. We spoke for what felt like forever, about why I wanted to study film and many other questions that to. this day I honestly can’t remember.
Anyway, I came out of the interview and waited and waited until I heard the news.
February 2019
After what felt like the longest two days of my life, I heard that I had received an unconditional offer to study film production at the Arts University Bournemouth. As soon as that email came through I rang my Mum immediately (unfortunately it went straight to answerphone, but hey ho!) to tell her the good news and we celebrated for a while! Obviously, I accepted the offer and said goodbye to the two other offers that I had. And now, we wait to start in September.
To be quite honest with you, noting much else happened in February. I did a lot of overtime at Waitrose, and that was that. I did however, book another trip to Disneyland Paris. However, this was a super special one, as it was with my best friend Emma for her 30th birthday. We booked eveeything and announced it all on the same day cause we could not control our excitement!
Towards the end of the month, I headed out to an event with Lush with the Bournemouth Bloggers. We got to see their Mothers Day and Easter products and I bought far too many things (cause I actually still have some left over from the event that I haven’t used yet!). It was a super lovely event to go to as I got to spend time with my blogger friends and try some cool new Lush stuff!
March 2019
I kicked off the event with another blogging event. We headed back to The Real Eating Company (which has slowly become one of my favourite independent chains!) to try out their pop-up lunches with a company called Lunch’d (you can read my blog post all about it here). There was so much delicious food! YUM!
Again, there was the weekly trips to see Emma and Benjamin on a Tuesday. There was also all the overtime I could get at Waitrose. It was still very much a routine thing.
However, the big thing this month was my 5 day trip to Disneyland Paris. Yep, back there again! This one was a little different as I had booked to go to the annual pass party. It was the Pirate, Princess Party which was INCREDIBLE! Ok, it wasn’t that great! It was a lot of money for what it was, and I probably won’t be rushing back to go to another one anytime soon, but it was a fun experience. And, it also meant that I got to say good-bye to the Pirate and Princess show, which I’m still super bummed about the fact that they have got rid of it. I think it was an incredible show, which they should bring back!
It was all go swimmingly well, until the day after the party. Now I have written a blog post all about this, so I recommend you read that for the full details, but lets just say that something not so great happened and it had a massive effect on me (and still does). However, I powered on and enjoyed the rest of my little holiday.
April 2019
I went on holiday again! This time I was fortunate enough to go to our house in Spain with my family. We were there for a week and the weather was awful, but it was nice to spend the Easter weekend away with family.
May 2019
I started the month in Disney. What a way to start the month hey! Like I said before, Emma and I headed to Disneyland Paris for her 30th birthday. It was such a magical 2 days! We took many a photo, went on the rides and watched some of the shows. It was so much fun, and I was so pleased that I got to share my favourite place with my best friend.
To be quite honest, not much else happened in May. It was all very much the same old same old. Working at Waitrose, seeing Emma and Benjamin. Pretty routine.
I did get to go on a really awesome blogging event to Compton Acres with the Bournemouth Bloggers. It was somewhere that I had always wanted to go ever since I moved down to the South Coast. I was so pleased to wander around with Emma and have a photo shoot among the flowers. We even got to have afternoon tea at there as well.
I also got to tick another local bucket list thing which was head to Bournemouth 7s. When I was at school it was the super cool thing to head to 7s. Well, this year, super cool me went to 7s. I even saw some of my old school friends whilst I was there, and I’m not going to lie, it was one of the best feelings in the world to show them my Press Pass. (Certain people at school made fun of me for doing all of this blogging stuff, well look at me now getting press passes to 7s hey!).
June 2019
June was a pretty quiet month for me.
I did get to go to a blogging event at Haskins Garden Centre again. They treated us to so many yummy treats! We even got a little house plant (which I would like to point out I have not killed yet!).
Throughout the middle of June, not much happened. I mean I went to the cinema, did more overtime at work. That kind of thing. Nothing overly exciting. It was quite a quiet month for me.
At the end of the month I headed to Disneyland Paris (again). This time it was to see the Lion King and Jungle Festival. It was pretty nerve-racking this time, as it was my first time on my own in Disney since the little incident back in March. However I powered on through as I wanted to enjoy my time there, and I did.
July 2019
I continued my trip to Disneyland Paris in July. It was fairly busy, which wasn’t ideal, but it was still amazing. I continued my Lion King and Jungle Festival viewing. It was a lot of fun.
This July, we also celebrated my Grandma’s 80th birthday. We hosted an afternoon tea for her. All of her friends and family were there to celebrate my Grandma. It was lovely!
My weekly trips to see Emma and Benjamin kind of came to an end this month. I guess it was partly because all of her family were off school and I didn’t want to interrupt family time. I also think it was mainly me. My mental health had hit an all time low. Doing all this overtime at work was great for my bank account, however it was taking a toll on me. Is it bad that work kind of made me depressed? I hated it. For hours I would be stacking shelves and in my opinion, there was nothing exciting about my life. It was like my life had become completely still and meaningless. So Emma, if you are reading this, I’m sorry that I neglected our friendship. 2020 is going to be different and I am going to make time for you, I promise!
I re-downloaded Tinder for the millionth time. At this point, I think I was getting lonely. I was talking to a few people on their, but one guy kept my interest for quite a while! However, I ended up deleting it again.
August 2019
Again, my mental health was not great. The agonising wait for university to start was painful. It was taking it’s toll on me. I declined a lot of social activities (not that I had that many in the first place) which looking back was super stupid of me! If I had people to talk to, my mental health would have improved, but I thought that I would just upset people more.
To try and bring me out of my bad mental health, I booked yet another trip to Disneyland. This time I stayed in the Cheyenne which is onsite, and I think one of my favourite hotels to date. The Lion King and Jungle Festival was still on going, and it was so lovely to see it for the second time. I paid for the Lion King Signature package, which gave me exclusive things to do whilst I was in the park. It was so worth the extra money. I even got to sit front row for one of The Rhythms of the Pride Lands Show, which was incredible. I couldn’t have asked for better!
Like I said, back in July we celebrated my Grandma’s 80th birthday. One of her birthday presents was a trip to Belgium. So my Mum, my Grandma, my Grandma’s best friend and myself all got in the car and headed to Bruges. It was such a lovely couple of days. Bruges is one of my favourite places to visit because of it’s beauty.
September 2019
We continued our travels in Belgium and travelled to Ypres. We explored some of the WW1 sites and spent a lot of time at the Menin Gate. Both nights we were there, we went and saw the Last Post Ceremony which happens every evening under the gate. The last night, Colin Thackery (winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2019) performed during the ceremony. After seeing this, my Grandma has now become THE BIGGEST fan of Colin Thackery! Most of her Christmas presents were related to him and she’s hoping to see him live at his tour in 2020.
This was the month that I started university! Finally, after months and months of sitting around and waiting, it was time for me to start university on the 16th September. It was super fun, and I even made friends on the first day. In fact, one of those friends I made on the first day, Alexa, is actually one of my closest friends now! University is super fun, and I’m super happy I started there. I didn’t think I could be as happy as I was (and still am!).
At the end of the month is my birthday! This year, I was turning the grand old age of 22. So, what a better place to celebrate than in Disneyland am I right? Yep, my 22nd birthday was spent dancing around to Taylor Swift’s 22 in Disneyland Paris. I went with my Mum for the weekend and it was such fun! It was also the start of the Halloween season whilst I was there, so it was amazing that I got to see that, I honestly thought cause of university that I was going to miss it!
October 2019
Remember that guy I was talking about back in July. Well, on the 6th October we FINALLY met up. It was a long time coming, but I am so glad we did, cause on the 18th October we made it official. His name is James (I believe I have mentioned him in a previous post) and he is pretty cool. He also studies film production (unfortunately at a different university in a different city, which is super annoying, but we make it work).
October was also the month where we made our first film at uni. It was a lot of fun! My role was the sound which was something I had never done before (and I would defo be happy not doing the sound again, as it wasn’t for me!).
November 2019
Again, I spent more time with James (you will be able to tell that he is a running theme in the last three months). We went on multiple dates and also I just chilled at his a fair bit. Any free time, that I had, I wanted to spend it with him. November was definitely the month that I neglected my university friendships. Well, no, that’s not quite right. I hadn’t worked out the proper balance between my relationship and my friends. To be quite honest, I still haven’t worked it out properly, but I’m trying my best to see my friends and my boyfriend as equal as I can.
This month we made our second film. This time we actually got to shoot on actual film. We used Bolex cameras and it was just incredible. I also had the best crew on this film and I got to produce it. Honestly, this film was the most fun because I had an insane roll of being the producer (which I think is what I want to do) and I made some incredible friends.
November also saw me head to an event at The Riverside in Christchurch for a Festive Dinner. I was allowed to bring a plus one to this event, so obviously I brought James along. It was actually perfect because he likes photography and he ended up taking all the photos for me. It was great! I just sat there and ate the food, whilst James did all the hard work.
December 2019
This has been such a lovely month. One of my favourite months in fact!
On the 7th December, I did go to Longleat with the Brownies and Guides. It has been something I have always wanted to go to at Christmas as they have beautiful light displays for the Festival of Light. This year the theme was Myths and Legends. It was super cool, and I am so glad that I suggested we took the Brownies and Guides as it meant that I was able to go too!
This month, I have stayed over at James’s uni house many times! I even spent a whole week there with him (I hope his house mates don’t find me too annoying!). To be completely honest, I was there a lot! All of my free time, I was with him. James and I didn’t even do that much though. We went to the cinema a few times and saw Last Christmas, Parasite (at one of those Screen Unseen things at Odeon which is super cool) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
However, we did venture outside and went to Winchester to have a look around the Christmas market. James bought me this super cute hat from their as well, which was super generous of him!
After our little week together, it was time for me to come home and spend time with my family. Unfortunately, most of that time was spent down at Bournemouth Hospital as my Grandma had a chest infection, however, it’s all good as she was allowed out on Christmas Eve and she stayed with us until just after Boxing Day.
On the 27th, I headed to London. For Christmas, I bought James tickets to see Ghost Stories at the Ambassadors Theatre. It’s a show that he has wanted to see for a while so I thought that would be a nice Christmas present for him. James’s family home is in London, so that meant that it was time I met his Mother. I was super nervous. I’ve never done the whole meet the parent thing before! However, it went super well (or at least I think it did!) The show was also incredible! I held onto James the entire time, and it’s fair to say that I was absolutely terrified 😂.
Back to reality at home when I came home! Back at work after Christmas, and all of the step family were down. So there were lots of people about the house.
Before the year was up, I spent some time with Emma doing our usual thing of watching films and having a catchup! It was very much needed and I’m so glad that we were able to do it. (I’ve missed our chats a lot!).
Before heading back up to London for New Year’s Eve, I made sure to spend an evening with my Mum. For as long as I can remember, Mum and I have spent New Year’s staying up in the lounge so we can watch the fire works and play board games. This will be the first year that I won’t be doing that. So, we had our New Year’s Eve Celebrations a day early.
As this post will go up on the morning of New Year’s Eve, I’m not quite sure where I will be for midnight. I know I will be with James and somewhere in London, but apart from that, it’s all I know. I guess I will have to update you next year!
Well, that was 2019.
On a whole, I think I will look back at 2019 as one that is super positive. So many good things happened. I am definitely a very different person now in comparison to who I was at the start of the year. Uni and a relationship has definitly changed me, for the better I think!
I guess all I have to say is, thank you to those who have been in my life this year that have made 2019 the best year it could be. Here’s to not only the next year, but the next decade!
If you want to follow my adventures along the way, you should definitly check out my Instagram. Although I haven’t been posting much on there in 2019, it is where I post the most, so follow along with 2020 on there.
Happy New Year to all of you. I hope that 2020 will bring you all the joy and happiness that you deserve!
Happy New Year
