The Best of January

At last, January is coming to an end. My least favourite month of the year, and probably most other people's also. Christmas is over, it's dull and dark. Dreary, cold and wet. 

No more sparkly lights, nights out or continuous opportunities to drink Prosecco.

Somehow though, we still managed to make the most of it!

My month in review is a simple concept but it's a nice way of stepping into a new month with a bit of positivity. I'm gonna do this in bullet points cause otherwise I'll write an essay and no one wants that. 

• We went to see our favourite painting (and if I'm being a knob I'll say "our wedding painting" also) The Meeting On The Turret Stairs in the National Gallery's Burton exhibition, which was wonderful.
• We finally got to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. I still haven't clarified in my own mind how I feel about that film as it's so multi-layered but I definitely can recommend it.
• I read some brilliant books and got my years goal of reading 70 off to a great start. I read 6 books this month with favourites including; Practical Magic (Alice Hoffman), Little Deaths (Emma Flint) and The Mother of All Questions (Rebecca Solnit).
• Mostly we stayed indoors to hibernate and watched the feck out of Netflix. The Crown season 2 was enjoyed with a healthy dose of anti-colonialism and we've also been binge watching Elementary, which is surprisingly entertaining.

• I made my triumphant return to my pilates class, which may or may not have crippled me but we'll worry about that in February. 
• Nollaig na mBan (Women's Christmas) was spent with family in The Westin eating tiny sandwiches and sipping prosecco, which was a lovey treat (I lied about the lack of prosecco opportunities in January).
• We booked our Copenhagen/Mälmo/Stockholm trip for May. You should know by now that I had nothing to do with that- it was all Himself (I did buy a swimsuit for our trip to the Amalfi Coast though so that's kind of the same thing as holiday planning, if you think about it)
• We helped christen our beautiful nephew and godson, Tom. 
• We finally got to try Hang Dai for Himself's birthday; a fancy and very cool Chinese restaurant that had been high on our list of Dublin spots to go for food. We will be back.
• Beauty wise, I loved trying the new SOS Primers from Clarins and the MAC Lunar New Year lipsticks, which Himself has described as looking like tampons. Thanks, Himself. 
• Lastly and most excitingly, Leo Varadkar has announced that a referendum to repeal the 8th amendment will go ahead this year and in May, no less. Got to get the old campaigning boots back on and also possibly organise a flight home for a day to vote from the previously mentioned trip to Sweden! 

Phew! That feels better! I think I demonise January a bit too much, lots of good things happened! How was your month? What lovely things did you do to make the start of the year a bit more bearable?

XX