It seems like I’ve had a bit of long-overdue good luck recently, because a few weeks ago some of our family friends invited us to come with them to Wembley Stadium to watch the Ireland v Romania Rugby World Cup game. Unsurprisingly, Mum and I jumped at the opportunity to go, and last Sunday the big day finally arrived.

I didn’t know if anyone would actually be interested in hearing solely about the planning stages of my 2016 trip, but I thought that as I’m going to be blogging about the time that I spend there, it might be nice to do this from start to finish. Today I started my journey in a way, because today I booked all the flights, insurance and tours that I had planned. I am now considerably less financially stable, but I’m far happier knowing that this trip isn’t just some vague idea anymore; it’s now a definite plan. At 8am on January 16th 2016 I will be leaving the UK and jetting off on (hopefully) the trip of a lifetime.

After a slight adjustment to my plans after leaving university this year, I made the decision to commit to a return to education in September 2016, to complete an MA in Women’s Studies.

My ex-boyfriend’s mother, Sue, used to be like a kind of ‘second mum’ to me. On occasions and big family gatherings she used to make this dip. Artichoke hearts have always been one of my favourite foods; when I was younger my mum would buy huge jars of them from Costco and I used to stand by the fridge with a fork eating them out of the jar when Mum wasn’t looking. It’s no wonder then, that this has become one of my all-time favourite recipes.

1. Climb Kilimanjaro
2. Go bungee jumping (Queenstown 15/04/16)

3. Go skydiving (Franz Josef Glacier, 12/04/16)
4. Run a half marathon

Last week I was lucky enough to have the chance to see Les Enfant Terribles’s most recent production at the London Waterloo Vaults, ‘Alice’s Adventures Underground’. I wasn’t going to write about this because the show has just closed, and I felt it would be a bit harsh to go on about how great it was if nobody would be able to enjoy it in the future. However, today the company sent out an email to say that the production would be back in 2016 – you can even sign up to a mailing list so you know when tickets are available – and I felt it was my duty to thoroughly recommend this experience.