A year of adventures

It’s a year today that we said goodbye to England and began our adventures in South East Asia…

…wow, a year! and what a year it has been! We’ve lost over fifty pounds of blubber between us, visited eight countries and been on over twenty planes as well as countless trains, buses and boats and more mopeds than I’d like, so four then. We spent more than twice our budget, thanks to amongst other things our discovering and falling in love with diving. Other than that budgetry faux pas we’ve survived the year wonderfully unscathed; save for two broken toes (the same one twice, doh!), a thousand or so mosquito bites and more than my fair share of jellyfish stings, four bouts of food poisoning, one lost wedding ring, one drowned iPhone and one faulty camera.

That said, we are lucky enough to have had no truly terrible experiences, a few crappy ones for sure but nothing scary or dangerous and staying in a poopy hotel isn’t exactly the end of the world. I’ve loved having friends and family join us in exploring exotic places and the majority we’ve been to and people we’ve encountered have been fabulous, some who’ve left enduring impressions and I’m sure will be in our lives forever.

We’ve overpaid plenty of times but not been out and out ripped off once (that we know of). We’re still getting comfortable with bartering but are now totally at home sitting on the sidewalk at the scruffiest of make do tables enjoying the finest of local fare. We’ve worn four pairs of havaianas out between us and haven’t worn actual shoes once in those three hundred and sixty five days and are both a little concerned about how painful it will be when we do.

Yesterday was my one hundredth dive, a beauty of a dive at Mangroves on Nusa Lembongan, usually a drift race but for once a calm and magical hour with my fellow divemaster trainees and our two awesome instructors and in a few days (all willing and exams passed) I’ll be a PADI Divemaster, which is pretty mind blowing for someone who didn’t dive a year ago!

I have no regrets about the decisions we’ve made along the way, for sure hindsight is a wonderful thing but every decision we made brought us to right here and right here is flipping awesome. 

The year has I think changed me for the better, I’m more accepting of others (yes of course I am still an impatient so and so, I said more accepting not saintly) I’ve learned, and am still learning, a hell of a lot, about the world, it’s people and me, I’m more curious, braver and I hope kinder and for sure more likely to say YES to life. Make up is a thing of the past and with it a certain level of vanity; of course I’ll wear it again however I’m now gloriously comfortable in my own skin in a way I’d never previously imagined.

J says his eyes have been opened more, he’s more relaxed (if that’s even possible) and he doesn’t need routine as much, he’s also gloriously tan which I pretty much love. Our relationship is as lovely and silly as ever, we’re certainly not perfect, he’s still super grumpy in the mornings and I’m still annoyingly chipper. Having no personal space certainly hasn’t done us any harm, not that we don’t appreciate it when we get a chance to have some, we just live well and easily together, due mostly to J being the most laid back person in the universe (dies crying with laughter because he’s totes OCD in an utterly adorable way).

The year has whizzed by and we’re nowhere near ready for our adventures to end so are definitely mulling over our next steps. While still enjoying the present, we’ve planned out until the end of the year with a few holes that we’ll fill as the months go by.

It has been many things this wonderful year and the main one is that it has been the most amazing year of my life.

So far Xx 

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The photo is an in order history of the last year, every Tuesday I have taken a selfie to chart any physical changes, I take the  photo first thing when I am unwashed, unbrushed and leave it unedited. The eagle eyed amongst you will notice there are not 52 photos, some were lost when my iphone was drowned and the others I’m not sure where they’ve got to. At some point I’ll try and find them, but between Divemaster studying, exams and beach clean ups, this week has been more than busy enough all ready Xx