Happy New Year!!

Ciao,

Firstly Happy New Year!! Can't believe it's here again and that Christmas has been and gone already. Our house has been stripped bare of Christmas spirit and it has all been stored away until that wonderful time of year comes around again. Is it too early to start the countdown?? 

Christmas this year was a mixture of both lovely and sad family moments. As always I was well and truly blessed to spend the day with my wonderful family, eating food and exchanging presents. It was especially lovely to have my cousins little girl here, children always increase the magical feeling at Christmas time. However, Christmas day was blighted by sadness for my Dad and his family. Sadly on Christmas Day, Terry, my Dad's younger cousin passed away. His death came as a massive shock to us all, although I have only met him a handful of times as he lived in a special home for people with Down's Syndrome and other mental disabilities on the Isle of Wight, I was shocked to hear the news. I am dedicating this blog post to Terry and his family who had to deal with losing such a treasured person on Christmas Day. 

This leads me to New Years, I was lucky enough to spend the last few moments of 2012 and the first few of 2013 with most of my closest friends and my little sister. We had a night at my uni house playing the newest Just Dance on the wii, drinking, singing and most importantly laughing. My brother wasn't with me so naturally me and my sister called him up just after 12 and were greeted with a very very intoxicated brother who proceeded to repeatedly tell us he loved us. Now as cliché as that sounds, is it such a bad thing? Shouldn't we all be calling people just to tell them we love them regardless of the time of year or our state of soberness? I'm not a believer in New Year resolutions, I think if change needs to be made it should be made as and when it is needed, not because it's January 1st! Same goes for telling people you love them, it should be said all year round. Who knows, telling someone you love them just randomly could make their day, it could make their week, it could restore their faith in humanity if they're having a really bad time. I cannot think of a single negative thing about simply telling someone you love them, I mean who doesn't like to be told that they're loved?? Spread the love in 2013!

So what will 2013 have in store? 2012 was a huge year for Britain...the Olympics were my personal highlight! I was lucky enough to be involved, even if it was only as a cleaner in the Rowing Village! But 2013 has much more in store for me personally, in precisely 3 months and 9 days I will turn 21... EEK! The saying is 'Key to the door, never been 21 before' but this year I am getting a key to the world. I am going on my year abroad which in many ways is my reason for starting this blog! In July I will be leaving for Gascony for 2 months, then on to Lyon and finally off to Italy. I will be gone a year and as daunting as this is I am unbelievably excited! So on that note I wish you all a very happy New Year, I hope you have many new experiences and spend another year being happy. 

Ciao for now...

Dedicated to Terry Appleton and Jordan Bartlett. Angels taken in 2012. <3