Monthly Musings: January 2026
hellloooooo 2026!
Hello, friends! Happy New Year! Welcome to our Monthly Musings: January 2026 post, our first of the year! I hope it finds you wearing new supremely comfortable pjs and vegging out to the max before any real world duties start back up again tomorrow. Did you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s? I hope it was filled with all sorts of delicious over-indulgence. Personally, I devoured an excessive amount of cheese, far too many choccies, and many a festive tipple — it was wonderful! Our plan to split our time between our two families went off without a hitch; Bean was a perfect angel and somehow everything went very smoothly! We rounded out the break on New Year’s Day by celebrating with both of our families together, which was so lovely for Bean’s first year!
The last few days, we’ve been taking it pretty easy. You know, lounging on the couch reading, going for lazy walks along the seafront, and curling up under a blanket to watch a movie. It’s been so nice! We had one final hoo-rah earlier this afternoon — more details next month! — before we officially get back to some semblance of routine and normality starting tomorrow. It’s always so hard getting back into the swing of things after the Christmas break, but part of me is also looking forward to the regular-ness of life? Anyways, let’s get down to business!
As is tradition for our first Monthly Musings post of the year, you’ll find a massive recap of all the usual suspects listed below — travel, recipes, movies, books, blog posts, etc. One of my favourite posts of the whole year to write, I just love getting the chance to look back over the last 12 months and summarize everything.
I hope you enjoy, friends!
monthly musings: january 2026
But first! A baby update: Bean is doing great! She sleeps entirely through the night — and has since she was about 3-weeks old 🙏 —, is in good form 97% of the time, and is generally just super chilled out. I know all of this could change in a heartbeat, but for the moment she seems to be pretty easy-going! New adorable things she’s started doing include beaming up at us first thing in the morning when we wake her — which is literally the best thing ever and makes getting up much more enjoyable — and joining us on the couch for a cuddle while we’re watching a movie in the evening. Having her relaxing on my lap with her chubby hands clasped around my fingers at the end of the day is one of my new favourite things in the world ever ❤️
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Personally speaking, last year was a pretty big one for me. Amongst countless other happy moments, big highlights include: getting pregnant on our very first attempt, celebrating 2-years of marriage and 10-years total with my forever love, giving birth to a healthy and beautiful baby girl, and spending our first every Christmas together as a family of three. That being said, every coin has a flip side, and every highlight above was met with a lowlight: emergency surgery at 29-weeks pregnant, spending nearly 3-weeks in hospital from complications following said surgery, being written off work sick, and a hairy and traumatic birth. It goes without saying that the highlights far outweighed everything else, but oof, I hope 2026 is a little easier on us!
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Travel-wise, 2025 wasn’t nearly as good for me as previous years had been. I travelled to two different countries, neither of which were new-to-me; however, within those countries, I did manage to hit three new-to-me cities. I took 4 flights between 3 airports, stayed on the same continent all year, and spent a total of just 7-nights sleeping in a foreign country. Apart from the obvious reason for lack of travel back in 2020, these are my worst travel-stats since 2011 — gah! Now that we have Bean’s passport, I think we’ll definitely be booking in our next trip asap!
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Blog-wise, last year was a big one! Mind-bogglingly, the readership and subscription numbers continued to climb up from the previous year, which has been so lovely! I just took a peak at the ‘subscriber locations’ section of the site, and apparently we have subscribers across 19 countries, including India, Hong Kong, Australia, and Japan— how insane!! I absolutely love creating posts to share on this little corner of the internet, and the fact that people keep stopping by to read what I share is so beyond rewarding — thank you for being here, friends! It truly warms the cockles of my heart ❤️
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Post-wise, I published 38 pieces in total — not too shabby! There were 7 new travel guides, 15 old travel guides, 11 monthly musings posts, 1 special announcement post, 1 bucket list, 2 new recipes, and 1 recipe round-up. I know the guides and recipes are what draw people in, but, between you and me, these monthly musing posts are some of my very favourite to write. I love that they offer little glimpses into my life beyond the blog and, whenever I sit down to write the new one, I always read the previous year’s post to see how things have changed. It’s so fascinating! Do you keep a journal or something similar? It’s so cathartic!
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Stats-wise, there were some pretty big shakeups in the list of most popular posts on the blog! The most visited travel guide last year by an insane(!) number was Two Weeks in Japan | Our Honeymoon Itinerary, with A Food & Drink Guide to Kyoto, Japan trucking along in second place. These were followed in due course by Four Days in Osaka, Japan, A Quick Guide to Villefranche-sur-Mer, France, Two Weeks in Vietnam | Our Top Tips & Itinerary, and Four Days in Kyoto, Japan, respectively. That Villefranche-sur-Mer guide had been the #1 post since publication back in ‘23, so the fact that it’s been knocked down three(!) whole pegs has my jaw on the floor! I’m thrilled to see how popular my Japan guides have become — they’re some of my very favourite on the site! Thanks for trusting my recommendations, friends!
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On a less stats-oriented note, here are some of my personal favourite posts from the year. I can’t decide if my fave is this monthly musings post wherein I shared that we were pregnant, or this special post announcing Bean’s birth. Either way, they’re tied for top billing! Travel-wise: I think my Three Days in Stockholm, Sweden post is one of my favourites I’ve shared maybe ever? We had such a great time there and I am obsessed with the photos we managed to capture. I also feel a particular fondness towards my 48 Hours in Bristol, England post, which is probably because the city wowed me much more than expected. Recipe-wise: my Brown Sugar Whole Wheat Shortbread is an easy favourite — I am so proud of that recipe, I genuinely think it’s super delicious. Lastly, to round out the list, it’s gotta be my What We’re Meal Prepping Before Baby Arrives post, because it captured such a specific and joyous time in our lives. What were some of your favourite posts?
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According to our Letterboxd, we watched 184 movies last year — not bad considering we had a baby in October! Our most watched actor was John Travolta, thanks to our Travolta-season, and our most watched director was Chris Columbus. Standout thumbs-up movies from our list include: Conclave, which had some of the best vape acting we’ve ever seen, and A Complete Unknown, which we went to see in the cinema the very day we found out we were pregnant. Standout thumbs-down movies from our list include: Drop, which was so dumb it bored us senseless, and sadly, After the Hunt, which I wanted to like but just thought was pointless. What made it onto your hit and miss lists?
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Reading-wise, I did pretty well in 2025! Likely because I spent half of the year mentally and physically out of action, I managed to devour 25 books! Two standouts for me were We Solve Murders by Richard Osman, and Holly by Stephen King. The former because the sheer English-ness of it had me lol-ing on basically every second page — especially the traffic talk! it killed me —, and the latter because I love a good thriller and the plot of this was wildly unexpected. Also a special mention to Jenny Han’s The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy, which got me through some pretty awful nights when I was in hospital! If you’re interested in a deeper dive into my reading habits, here’s my StoryGraph Reading Wrap-Up. What were some of your favourite reads from the year?
And there we have it, our Monthly Musings: January 2026 post; the first of the new year! I hope you enjoyed the roundup style of the post — I love getting to reminisce over the previous year before fully embracing the new one! Let’s catch up again in February, okay?
Have the most wonderful month!
Hugs,
Vicki xo
related january posts
2025 // 2024 // 2023
2022 // 2021
2020 // 2019
