The year like none other

This has been some year :). Appropriately bookended by trips with/visiting the families in January and December! Somehow though, January feels like a very long time ago! Even more so than most years I'd say.

I suppose getting married is a pretty big deal in one's life, as such, that has rather overshadowed much else that has happened this year :). But there's been plenty of other stuff too!! Through one wedding or another, I've managed to meet up with more friends and family than in many years! And I've thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to catch up that those meetings presented, some more than others (the opportunities for catching up, I mean, not the enjoyment in said catching up :D).

One thing that was rather lacking was travelling just to travel, not to visit family :). Although there was that one fabulous trip to Croatia!

It's a shame really, in some ways, that I no longer seem to feel the compulsion to write down all the little details I so enjoy on trips like that. Maybe I should start again. We shall see :). Of course that would require some interesting travels, which incidentally is very much on the cards for 2018!

I probably didn't take as many photos as usual. Almost without realising it, I've succumbed to the phone camera pandemic... Then again, change is the name of the game that is life, so I try not to look at things through too much of a rose tint these days, with mixed success :).

Is accepting change a mark of growing up? Or growing old? I guess I'll settle for the in-between of  simply growing older :).

Another thing that I gave an almost total miss this year was cycling.. which is kinda sad. Something I'm looking forward to most definitely rectifying next year :). Although there was a reasonable amount of running. And this winter seems to have started off better than any I can remember since I moved here! The snow has been around more often than not all the way since November, and since we got back from England last Wednesday there has been so much snow!!!

We decided to celebrate by going cross country skiing for the last two days of the year :). And I'm happy to say that one winter of relatively less time spent on skis doesn't seem to have done much harm.

The trips to India and England went wonderfully, starting with a weather delay induced all inclusive holiday in Dubai :). Which is some ways was quite a good interlude before a very packed five days in Kolkata. The week in Harwell was rather more relaxed. I spent what seemed like most of my waking time eating awesome food or keeping watch over the fabulous wood fire :D. Can't think of many better ways of enjoying the end of the year.

Much has changed in the last year, and the feeling in my gut says more changes are coming :). But what a fabulous thing it is to discover new things in life :). So here's hoping for more joyful surprises and chance encounters making for an awesome new year!