Skip to main content

What a difference a year makes

Its the annual celebation of the day of my birth today and it casts me back to all past years and what I was doing then. Not least the birthday celebrations of The Big Adventure.

See its been 14 months since I left my job in London, packed up my bag and set off for Eastern Europe, Australia and finally home to Gore, New Zealand to be with my family a year ago.

With my niece Sophie and
cake baker nephew Joshua on my 30th
helping blow out the many candles
I celebrated the eve of my 30th with cups of tea with one of my mates from primary school, then some wine at the local with my girlfriends from school, And the big day (with a head feeling a year older!) with family and friends gathering from far and wide for lunch and birthday cake before we set off for the Rugby World Cup match between Argentina v Romania. I felt like the happiest girl in the world.

What has come to pass in the year since then has been supreme. The stuff that life should be full of. This blog has told it all. From the best of family moments with the addition of a new niece Isla (I shared the celebrations with an Indian couple on a plane to Singapore), to personal achievements of walking to Base Camp of Mount Everest, to the loneliest of moments on a beach in Thailand, being sicker than sick and ending up in hospital after it all and being so content after a night celebrating winning the Rugby World Cup on home soil.

To celebrate my 31st I am hosting a pub lunch at my local on the River Thames with my London friends and family.

Celebrating my 31st Birthday
with my London Nephew Desmond
he only came for C.A.K.E
What the year of the Big Adventure has taught me about myself is that my friends and family really are the greatest gifts I have. They enrich me, laugh with (or more often at) me, encourage me, share the good times and the bad, respect me, teach me and hug me. I am so delighted to have them all; varied and kind, rich and poor, intelligent and drunk, sports loving and loathing, all creeds and colours, short and tall, introvert and extrovert, arty or nerdy. No two the same. But each one making me more for knowing them.

So thank you friends and family for being wonderful to me and helping me enjoy the Big Adventure just that little bit more. I am fortunate to call you a friend and hope I have been a good friend in return.

Big Love always
31 year old KiwiJoBloggs

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My week as a Millionare

ok so being a millionare in Laos is not really difficult at 12,000 to the Pound I was off to a flying start to my anniversary week. Bamboo jetties on the Mekong I took a room along the Mekong River in the cultural city of Luang Prabang in Laos. I had been recommended to come here by travelling friends in Myanmar and I couldn't agree more this is the place in Asia you can come to chill out. Essentially I have eaten and drunk my way around the town. I have used the internet (although still using Gmail in html) and enjoyed using my tube of vegemite on my morning baguettes. My stomoch has expanded with all the foreign wheat I am now enjoying and all the lovely banana cakes I have been enthralled by. I went to a waterfall to see some blue water and stumbled on some bears - seriously stumbled. It was rather a delightful find. I couldn't take a picture to do it justice but It was delightful. I also went to some caves which were terribly dull after the cave experiences in Mya...
1 comment
Read more

Hills of His Holiness

The state of Himachal Pradesh is one of mountains and rivers, winding roads and toy trains. Here are a few of the famous tourist highlights I enjoyed between 10 hour bus journeys! Shimla Famed as one of the great Raj Era Hill Stations where ladies of the Raj spent monsoon summers sheltering from the heat, I had to see this. In my experience this is anything but a shelter from the heat! On arrival you are deposited in a new bus station 8 km from the town forcing you to use either the public bus (R10) or a  taxi (R250) neither takes you to the top of town or even close to a hotel. So I opted for the R10 bus. They deposited me at the bottom of the hill. Porters were waiting at the bottom but how hard could it be? Hard. I walked for 3 hours in the hot sun with my 20+kg trying to find a nice clean hotel room, eventually ending up on the ground floor of Spars Lodge. You can’t open the windows due to monkeys so the task of finding a room in Indian summer season is hard. Really th...
2 comments
Read more

Blog Catchup Links....

Because I have written my blog in chronological order I have updated a few gaps whilst I am procrastinating from job hunting! Hope you enjoy the stories as much I have enjoyed the experiences and if you have any questions or comments I welcome them..... India  - I had a few items to catch up on so here goes Mumbai/Bombay  -  Hello Mumbai! Bye Bye Bombay! Chandigarh, Punjab -  A Modernist Experiment 60 years on Taj Mahal, Agra  -  Taj Mahal Unvisited Thailand - I have not writen anything for my time in Thailand because my dear Mum says "if you can't say something nice so nothing at all" but here is a great cooking school I attended in Koh Chang of the South East Coast I am desperately trying to write about  Myanmar  for my friend Matthias. Promise its coming, I just need to put some final research into it my dear x I am working on some overview items for you too....joys of having some spare time on my hands "between job" Sensual ...
Post a Comment
Read more