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As you’re reading this I’m getting ready to travel to Leeds where I will hopefully spend a lovely festive time doing some casual last minute shopping, daytime drinking and winding down in to the Christmas holidays. We did the same last year and it was exactly like this, so hopefully history will repeat! You’ll be able to nosey in on my Instagram stories at what I get up to.

I really like reading posts like this, and writing them each year is a great reminder of the good things that have happened over the past 12 months, so here’s a (probably slightly longer than it should be, but hey it’s me) summary of how 2018 has gone down.

January

I kicked off the year with my 5 Things for 2018 pledge, which was a set of goals I hoped to achieve throughout the next 12 months. I also put myself on a spending detox as an alternative to dry January (which I managed to keep for about 3 weeks if memory serves). This month also saw my first ever comedy review post – Jason Manford’s Muddle Class tour.

February

The Mr and I headed across the Pennines to Manchester for a weekend break, where I finally got to meet the wonderful Dom face to face! I was super thrilled with the custom illustration he did for me. This month also saw the start of things to come in 2 areas of my life – we had a second viewing on a house we really liked, and I met a couple of new blogger friends…more on both of these later.

March

Myself and mama headed to Liverpool on a girl’s trip with our friends – we had drinks, food and did some shopping. We also had a night out to see Sarah Millican’s Control Enthusiast which formed my second comedy review of the year. I headed out to an influencer dinner at Tapasya Hull with blogger friends old and new and had some of THE most delicious Asian food I’ve ever had.

April

April was pretty quiet and not much to mention as we were getting ready to move house, other than a quick update on my 5 Things for 2018.

May

This month was all about 1 key event – WE FINALLY BOUGHT A NEW HOUSE AND MOVED IN.

June

Hello June, hello mid-life crisis mode! I turned 35, became unemployed and finished my microblading treatment. As part of my celebrations I also went to see Tom Allen at Hull Truck Theatre (a mini review was included in my birthday post if you click the link above).

In a bid to get results from the latest weight loss fad, I tried Boom Bod to see if it would help me shift some blubber around my middle (as I’m sure you’ll already have guessed, it didn’t). I a slightly downward twist of fate, I ended up resigning from my job because I had been lied to about what it entailed and it just wasn’t for me (word to the wise kids: be VERY choosy when dealing with recruitment consultants)

By far, the highlight of the month was watching one of my oldest friends get married, which was a truly beautiful day.

July

There’s only one word to describe this month – HOT! As the heat wave hit I busied myself searching for a new job, and by the end of July I’d found it. This picture was taken as I got the call.

I also helped my mum to plan and deliver my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary – we went for vintage themed decor and old photographs alongside a traditional British- themed buffet which all went down a treat.

BUT, there was still more to come from this month…

I said hello to HEY Bloggers! Together with a group of 5 other blogging girls (2 of whom I met back in February) got together and formed an online community for targeted at united bloggers and creatives in Hull and East Yorkshire (hence HEY). We’d be talking about it for a little while but this month provided me with a bit of unexpected free time to work together and get it off the ground.

August

This was a pretty exciting month – as well as getting stuck into my new job, I went to Santorini and had a fabulous time! I shared my thoughts on things you should definitely do, a guide to the island and a guide to Greek food.

Then came #HEYlaunch the first official event for the HEY Bloggers community. It was held at the beautiful Hull Minster and got some great feedback.

As if August wasn’t quite jam-packed enough, I managed to squeeze in a quick 48 hours in London too! We went out of our way to do some different things which turned out really well.

September

This month was all about work and not to much else, however I did get to see Joe Lycett who is one of my very favourite comedians (I didn’t ever get round to writing a review, but it was bloody funny) and Gary Delaney (again, didn’t quite get around to writing a review, but this was I think my third time seeing him so that should give you a feel for my thoughts).

October

In an effort to get back in to my fashion stride on the blog, I re-launched my celeb style round up as weekly fashion faves

and for the very first time I experimented with full face makeup to go out for Halloween (which also saw me visit Spiders nightclub for the first time, a proper Hull institution).

November

I kicked my month with going to the Gok Wan ‘One Size fits All’ tour, bought a load of tea aaaaannnnnnddddddd………

I met freekin’ Santa!! Princes Quay kindly invited me to preview this year’s grotto, and it was everything you’d want a child to experience.

I rounded off the month by hopping on the radio on behalf of HEY Bloggers to talk about all things social media.

December

Which brings neatly to December – as it is for most people, there was quite a lot going on! On 1 December I kicked off #blogmas2018 and and visited the Urban Legends: Northern Lights projections in Hull.

I caught up with old friends for our annual festive night in (this ended up involving way more prosecco than it should have) and helped to host the HEY Bloggers Christmas party (I’ll talk more about that in the new year)

So that’s my year! There’s only really the actual Christmas holidays to go, which I’ll do in a separate post before New Year.

See you tomorrow,

J xx