It’s coming up to the end of another year and I’m going to have another look back at what I’ve done over the last twelve months – it’s been busy! I’ve really got back into travel! I’ve not camped as much as I’d like, I’ve kayaked quite a bit and I’ve felt like I’m chasing my own tail since about April. If 2024 can be a bit less hectic, that would be lovely. As I don’t seem to be putting much down and I’ve picked up yet another something, it’s likely to be even busier but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Let’s start with the travel stuff, in numbers, like I used to. In fact, this is stolen from 2017.
40 nights away from home
21 different beds
16 nights under canvas
3 countries
2 different currencies spent
3 Girlguiding trips away
10 flights
8 airports
4 airlines
0 upgrades
8203 miles flown
14 pools sampled
12 outdoor pools
3 languages encountered
125 blog posts published (including this one)
14 videos posted to YouTube
19 comedy shows seen
16 comedy shows seen at the Edinburgh Fringe
1 Bronze Award received
1 book finished (writing, not reading)
The highlights of the year… well, let’s put these in categories.
Adventures
I did my Paddlesport Safety & Rescue training, that’s a big one. I also did the training and most of the assessment for the Sea Kayak Award – that’s definitely something I want to get assessed and finished in 2024. I had my first season at division boat club – I did a few actual boat club evenings, I did some unit taster evenings and the weather cancelled a few, and I took my own Rangers. And last in the kayaking adventures, I kayaked Jökulsárlón!
On dry land, I went to Camp Wildfire – my first festival, sort of, as a participant! – and did some adventurous activities that were a bit beyond me and a few that weren’t, got very muddy, walked around in a green feather headdress and a kind of fake Scout/Guide uniform/festival costume and got a patrol point for falling off being brave on the aerial trapeze.
Back in March, I walked the first two days (day and a quarter; thanks, blisters) of the South Downs Way, from the Winchester end. Glad I did it but I didn’t love it. At that end of the year, I also had a go at glass-blowing and blacksmithing – both crafts but definitely on the adventurous end of the craft spectrum. At this end of the year, I’ve been catching up on myself rather than adventuring. Maybe in 2024 I’ll have more adventures in here. Other than winter camp, adventures were pretty much over by September in 2023.
Travel
I went to Iceland twice, in February and in the summer and I vlogged both. February was snowy and beautiful and I crossed off lots of things I should have done already. The summer meant avoiding a volcano that I might have liked to visit (a 20km volcano hike was probably going to be too much for me), driving the Ring Road for the first time, spending a lot of time in hot water and actually, being grumpy a surprising amount. Turns out you need to stop and picnic regularly and you need to have actual food in the car occasionally. And to take a mallet if you’re camping at Skaftafell.
I went to Paris to escape the coronation and went to my first opera but otherwise spent the weekend overheating in the muggy Parisian May. Helsinki later in the same month suited me a lot better – it was warm and sunny but with a chill in the wind, I’d learned some Finnish and I wanted to try it out and I wanted to swim on the edge of the Baltic. Definitely want to spend more time in Finland. The Finland videos will be coming in 2024, I hope. Only a year after the actual trip. There will be no Paris video. I simply didn’t film it.
I went back to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time since 2019, saw some comedy, didn’t quite get back into the comedy habit I used to have but at least remembered why I used to have it. I had a long weekend in Cornwall in a tin tabernacle. I went camping… twice. One lazy weekend and one Silver Maverick Award weekend, which should really kind of fit under Adventure rather than Travel but it’s going here because I stayed away from home. And on that note, I completed my Bronze Maverick Award and I’m quite proud of that. Think Duke of Edinburgh’s Award but harder, and done properly because I’m a grown-up and not a lazy shortcutting teenager like I was when I did Bronze DofE. Post coming on that next year when I finish Elemental, which is another DofE-a-like.
Girlguiding
Quite a bit here. Three residentials – a sleepover with two other units, a camp that turned into an indoor residential with outdoor cooking, and a national large-scale winter camp. I took them to boat club and we went kayaking. We did an archery evening, we did the county watersports day and ended the year with the news that I’m going to become Division Commissioner for my Ranger division in the New Year (it’s a jobshare but still. Division Commissioner!).
Crossing Girlguiding over with travel – one of my Rangers got selected by Region to join an international trip this year! I’ve never sent anyone to INTOPS (International Opportunities); my previous district just didn’t do it, and not only did she get through County selection, she got through Region selection and is off to an international jamboree where I believe she’s spending the week with the Swedish contingent!
I joined an in-person Trefoil Guild, which is nice. Right now I’m still with the Internet Guild for the sake of badge work but that’s going to have to come to an end at census-time because stupid rules are that you can’t be a member of two Guilds at the same time. Actually, I have to say I’m not 100% sorry. Trefoil doesn’t scratch the itch for Guiding For Adults nearly as well as Rebel Badge Club does. Speaking of RBC, I went to two meet-ups this year and was Patrol Leader for Nelson for the one in October. I’m accustomed to being a leader with my Brownies and Rangers but it’s a very different experience when a) it’s adults b) it’s people I don’t know.
Online
I made and posted 14 YouTube videos, one a week every Tuesday since I finally got started in late September. I have plans to keep that up for at least the first half of 2024 – she’s got a content calendar for YouTube now! I learned that I probably shouldn’t wear grey-green-beige t-shirts under brown shirts to vlog, especially not when I’m in the south-east of Iceland where I blend into the ashy background and I’ve learned that I need to remember to talk to the camera more, especially first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
I think this is the last blog post of the year, which makes 125 altogether – that’s every Monday and Thursday plus the new Tuesday “I made a video!” posts plus the 12 Days of Christmas plus the unexpected volcano special last week. In blog stats, I’m up over a 53% increase on last year but not quite knocked my highest-ever month off its perch, which was September 2022. Did have a post that got so much more widely read than I ever dreamed, which is why my stats are up so much. Zac Efron is still my second-most read post but he’s a very long way behind the one about my new tablet. Give or take a couple of days – literal days – when the post about Iceland deleting the letter Z went semi-viral, he’s been my most-read post since July 2020 and it’s very odd to see him a distant second. Thanks for everything, Zac. Do another show in Iceland, would you?
Other
The big one in my “other” highlights is that I finished my Iceland book! I haven’t decided what to do with it – self-publish, face the rejection hell of trying to get an agent or just be satisfied with it sitting on my bookshelf next to the previous one. And I can’t not mention that after applying for four cities (and getting nothing from three of them), I managed to get myself a ticket to Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, to the envy of certain of my Rangers.
2024
Last of all, let’s talk about my plans, hopes and thoughts for 2024, using the same headings.
Adventures
First and foremost, I want to finish my Sea Kayak Award. I want to do some more kayaking training so I can feel like I actually deserve to put Paddlesport Safety & Rescue on my CV. Instructor Award is looking staggeringly unlikely this year, unless I can really master those rescues, and 100% isn’t going to be done before the end of boat club’s short season anyway. I’d like to do some more sailing. I’d like to just generally do some more paddling and spend more time on the water. 2023 was hectic. I only got the paddleboard out once or twice and the idea was to noodle off up the river every time there was a pleasant evening so I definitely want to do that at least ten times in 2024.
Travel
I have a big trip coming up in January/February that I’m going to leave as a surprise. It’s required more planning and forethought than I normally need to worry about, especially as half the point of it is to have less planning and forethought but I’m hoping to get at least ten blog posts out of it and nine videos so that’s going to be good both for material and for me.
In the summer, I’m going to Poland – that’s for Eras. I haven’t decided yet where exactly I’m going or when but I know I’ve got to be in Warsaw on August 3rd. Whether I travel around, whether this is at the beginning or the end, I don’t yet know.
I’d like to go back to Iceland. I said I was going to do the Laugavegur Trail but as that’s only really accessible late June to mid-August, it might be hard to fit that in around Guiding and Poland. I haven’t given up on it but I’m kind of deliberating over “straight from Poland?” or “straight before Poland?” or “do it in June when it’s still snowy?”. Now that there are direct flights from the UK to Akureyri, I might spend a bit more time in the north, like I said I was going to this summer but again, that’s going to be a matter of when I can fit it in. Maybe Easter holidays. Spring in the north.
Maybe I’d like to go to Germany or Budapest – one of the ideas I’m toying with for the next book is about geothermal hot water and so maybe I need to go and do some more research on the subject of lying around in hot water.
That’s all I’ve got planned and even as it is, I’m hugely overworking the word “planned”. I daresay I’ll have another winter glamping trip, I want to go camping more (I have a new tent to try out – adopted it from Camp Wildfire when it’s owner abandoned it) and we’ll see how I do for random last-minute trips. I’d like to spend more time in Finland, for example. Maybe Helsinki. Maybe somewhere a bit more forests-and-lakes. Maybe the frozen far north. It’s all going to come down to how much time I have.
Online
More videos. More videos! Blogging is my thing, I’m far more adept at making words on a keyboard than I am out loud but I want more strings to my bow. I would still refer to myself as a travel blogger because that’s what I primarily do but I’d like to be able to call myself a travel blogger and YouTuber. Just widen my reach. Earning some pocket money would be nice but mostly it’s just for the sake of doing bigger things, having a wider net and honestly, I really enjoy watching my own videos. That’s my trip, all set out in an easy-to-watch video so I can relive my adventure around the Ring Road whenever I like! If other people watch, that’s a bonus. I admit, I can’t make 52 travel vlogs a year so I’m supplementing that with sit-down videos in my office (standing up, technically) but the ones that I personally rewatch are the travel vlogs. We’ll see how that goes.
I’d like to do the usual December/Christmas/winter blog special but without it being stressful. This year was Twelve Days of Christmas, where I did one every other day between the 1st and the 24th. Last year I did Blogmas and that was every day. In 2021, it was every Monday, Thursday & Saturday and I called it the Polar Bear Winter Festival. I like increasing the posts for December but it feels like a lot of work. The plan was to do basically do one a month throughout 2023 so it was all waiting when the calendar ticked over but that fell to pieces by February. Yeah, do want to do a December blog event. Just want it to be easy.
Girlguiding
Big new adventure in Girlguiding and that’s the Division Commissioner role. We’re a small division and it’s a jobshare. Please don’t let it be too much!
Technically I’ll be second-in-command (at least on the water) at the boathouse now I’ve got my PRS but in practicality, it won’t make much difference. I’ll still be the new girl right up until someone else comes along, if they come along.
We’ll see what comes of residentials – I’d like to take the Rangers to camp again but it’s a lot of work for three or four girls and even more work if I do a joint Guides and Ranger camp. I’d have to dig in pretty much tomorrow on my Going Away With licence.
Others
Last of all – I want to start writing a new book but I’m still dithering over the subject. The last two were really obvious. This one isn’t. Do I do the Laugavegur Trail from 2018? Do I have enough material from five and a half days to get a book out of it? Or do I take inspiration from Alexia Brue and do the book about geothermal hot water? Or do I do the more nature/outside/wellness one about walking my neighbourhood every day? Or is there something else lurking in me? One day conditions might be right again for me to finally do the Russia book but I suspect 2024 isn’t going to include that day. Watching Light Attaching to a Girl the other day made me wonder if drafting out and writing snippets of a solo female travel in Iceland story might not be a terrible idea – that would be actual fiction which is so far from my strong suit, though.
I’m so nearly finished with my Silver Voyage Award – that’s the Trefoil equivalent of DofE (yes, I’m doing three different versions of something DofE-like). I’ve finished four of the five sections, I just need to find someone to sign off three of them and then we need to do the Division Thinking Day event which will be the fifth section. I started this in 2017, you know.
I found my grandad’s ancient 60s/70s film SLR camera in the loft in December, so I want to learn how to use that and take some half-decent photos with it – I want to end 2024 at least understanding what the “film for beginners” videos are talking about. It weighs a ton so I’m probably not going to take it travelling – and right now, I don’t even know for sure that it works. It makes all the right noises but until I finish that roll of film and get it developed, I just don’t know. It’ll be fun to play with if it does work, though.
In stupid things, I want to clear out my car enough for the interior to be cleaned! And I need to get my eyes tested and get new glasses. I’ve been in the same ones for about five years now and I’m beginning to notice the first signs of middle-aged-longsightedness. Pick up my Finnish again – I got to the end of Duolingo and could do no more. But I do have a Teach Yourself book that might not be as far beyond me as it used to be.
And that’s it for 2023. Three more days to go and I need to spend them finishing the last book of the year (reading this time, not writing) and editing Tuesday’s video. See you in 2024.