Monthly Musings: January 2022
Happy new year, friends! How are you? Did you have a nice Christmas and new year? I feel very fortunate to have been able to celebrate the festive season largely unaffected by Covid, but it felt like everyone around us dropped like flies. Boyfriend & I did our usual separation for Christmas-at-home-with-the-families, before reuniting on Stephen’s Day for leftover sandwiches. It doesn’t matter how much Christmas dinner I load up on on the 25th – and it’s hard not to, with all the delicious food my mom makes! – I always look forward to a leftover sandwich the next day! Stuffing, sprouts, ham, turkey, cranberry sauce, coleslaw – everything great about Christmas in one epic sandwich! Do you have any similar festive traditions?
Other than that, I’ve been treating myself to a ‘gentle January’ of sorts. Taking it easy, doing whatever feels right, and putting my Christmas presents to good use. Most days I can be found wandering the house in my new Birkenstock slippers, pouring over my new epic travel atlas, making travel plans, and eating my way through the chocolate we accumulated over the season. It’s truly wonderful.
Our Monthly Musings January 2022 post is below. I hope you find something to take away with you, be it a new cookbook or perhaps a hankering to visit a tiny country near you. Enjoy!
Monthly Musings: January 2022
Covid 19 update: we’re all boosted! Boyfriend and I were lucky enough to get ours in the middle of December, my sister followed us just 2-days later, and the last few members of Boyfriend’s family just a further 2-days after that! It felt like it wasn’t going to happen, and then out of nowhere, bam! All in one swoop, and thankfully all done before Christmas! It knocked me totally sideways for 2-3 days, but I’m so glad to have it! Other than that: Omicron is everywhere, the cases are at an all-time high, some restrictions are still in place, and restaurants/bars etc. have to close by 8pm.
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Our trip to both Bordeaux and Saint-Émilion was amazing! We ate such an abundance of great food – duck! foie gras! cheese! dunes blanche! – and drank all the delicious French wine in our vicinity! It’s hard to believe that was just one short month ago, but here we are. I’m in the middle of writing travel guides for both places, and will hopefully be able to share sometime next month! Expect a lot of food and drink recommendations
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I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be saying this, but Boyfriend & I are going away again! In less than a week, we’ll be jetting off to Luxembourg, the 7th smallest country in Europe! Honestly, we weren’t looking to go away again so soon, but we somehow stumbled upon €8 flights(!) & extremely good value accommodation, and we’re both at the peak of our immunization after the booster, so we’re doing it! Neither of us have every been to the tiny country, but we’re so excited! I shall report back!
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Related: I’m not really one for new year’s resolutions, but I want to travel more this year. Over Christmas, it dawned on me that I haven’t visited a new-to-me country in six years. Further reflection had me counting up the total number of countries I’ve been to, and I came out with 24. Ideally, I’d like to hit 30 before I turn 30. Obviously, during the pandemic especially, it will be easier to focus on the countries I’ve missed across Europe, such as Luxembourg. I have hopes of visiting 4 new countries this year, and I’m feeling very optimistic about it! Watch this space!
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Also related: I’m in the middle of updating my travel guides to make sure they’re still relevant in this Covid-19 world of ours. Boyfriend said something recently about how he’s skeptical of travel guides written pre-pandemic, and it got me thinking: have any of the places I’ve recommended been lost to Covid? Sadly, yes! 14 restaurants/cafes/cocktail bars/B&Bs/and one airport have been struck from the face of the Earth. I’ve left the info about each place in the posts, but added a caveat at the bottom about the closure. If you’re looking to see how recently a guide was fact-checked, there’s a new “*POST UPDATED ____” line at the very top of the post. I hope this helps!
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In an extremely unforeseen turn of events, there were no new recipe posts in December. I just wasn’t feeling the whole festive baking thing, and I didn’t push myself. I plan on making Valentine’s day cookie boxes to make up for missing out on Christmas Cookie Boxes. Despite the lack of baking related posts, I did manage to share two travel related posts! You can now read about my entire Amalfi Coast trip with the final two installments: Two Days in Amalfi & Positano and One Night in Naples, Italy. I just love Italy.
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We had a great cookbook haul this past Christmas: Zoe Bakes Cake / Sugar, I love You / BraveTart / An Unapologetic Cookbook. I love that they’re all so different from each other, there’s definitely a lot there to keep me busy for a while. Side note: do you keep an Amazon Wish List? Mine is made up of cookbooks – so if I ever want to treat myself, I don’t impulse buy something random, but something I know I’ve actually wanted for ages. It’s so helpful!
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Related: I plan on kicking Cookbook Club back into action next month with one of the above books. I’m so out of the baking loop at the moment, it’ll probably just be the one book to ease myself back in slowly. In the meantime, click here to look through our Cookbook Club archives.
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It was Boyfriend’s birthday on NYE, and we celebrated with an extended 5-day long affair. Dinner out with his parents, a romantic wine + cheese night at home, takeout, an epic chocolate cake a la Zoe Bakes Cake, dinner with my family, and so many happy moments in-between all of the above. Getting older is a gift and I love any excuse to celebrate it! It was a wonderful weekend!
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Have you seen any good films or TV-shows lately? My favourite thing we’ve watched this month has probably been The Rescue, the documentary about the Thai football team stranded in the caves. It was so well done! Other recent watches include The Power of the Dog, The Tender Bar and The Lost Daughter. TV-wise, we’re rather enjoying And Just Like That…, while also still dipping in & out of both Modern Family and Pretty Little Liars. We’re going to try Archive 81 on Netflix soon. I’ll report back!
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We’re in the middle of clearing out all the junk that’s in our spare room upstairs. Old left-behind things that don’t belong to us but prohibit us from using the room. The main obstacles: two mismatching ginormous armchairs and three mismatching dining table chairs. I was at a loss over what to do with them until someone recommended joining a Zero Waste page on Facebook. Now, I’d never heard about this, but it’s a revelation! You put up a photo of the unwanted item – and from what I’ve seen, it could be ANYTHING – and a brief description, and people comment if they want it. For free, obviously, and it goes to the first commenter. I was free of my large armchair less than 24-hours later! A revelation, I’m telling ya!
And there we have it, our Monthly Musings: January 2022 post – the first of the new year! Just a few short weeks of gentle January left before I’ll be back with February’s dose of ramblings. Stay warm & safe!
Hugs,
Vicki xo
a look at Januarys past:
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