2025 – The One Where We Tried To Have A Quieter Year…

Well, 2025. I made it my mission to have a quieter year, and you know what………………. it didn’t work.

And for once, it wasn’t even travel that kept me busy; nor was it even entirely my fault. Between a few trips within Scotland and the UK, we had weddings, anniversary parties, and lots and lots and lots of visitors. In the space of a month across May and June, we had SIX visitors!

So while it’s been quieter than the past few years, that’s not really saying much. I’ve been abroad three times this year, to five countries. Compare that to the 15 countries I visited last year!

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And yet, we’ve been so busy that we haven’t even been able to do any spontaneous Scotland trips. I’ve done zero hiking except for one jaunt up Arthur’s Seat. I honestly have no idea where this year has gone!

So this year’s round up is as much for me, really; just to remember what on earth I’ve done. As it happens… quite a lot.

January – Madeira

We started off the year with a bang, with an unusual January trip! I was amazed that I was allowed any time off work because the busiest part of my job is over ski season (December, January and February are basically blacklisted on the holiday board!), but it was fantastic to go away for my birthday, for once. And to Madeira! Now one of our favourite places on the planet.

We went for four nights and had an absolutely amazing time. We stayed in Funchal, but managed to spend a day exploring the east coast on a tour, and my birthday was perfect, hiking into a valley and then enjoying the sunshine in a scenic fishing village.

We really loved Madeira, and we’re planning to go back. It might even become a regular holiday destination for us!

Read more: Mountains, Views & Gardens: Five Fabulous Days In Madeira

February – not a lot, actually

As usual, I can’t remember a thing from February. Except… Ash finally took his driving test – and passed! Woo hoo! No more having to work out how to get home if I’m out on my own, or worrying about getting stuck in the middle of the night. Ash can pick me up from the airport, or pop out to the supermarket when I’m away, and I can have a drink if we’re driving somewhere!

The only other thing I remember doing is a trip to Arbroath on the east coast of Scotland, to visit the abbey. Historic Scotland were doing their free Sundays offer over the winter again, which is a fantastic opportunity to visit their properties, and this was one place we hadn’t been. We also swung by St Andrews afterwards for a walk on the beach – somewhere I’ve been meaning to write more about.

March – Argyll

At the end of March, we went over to Argyll to stay in our beloved Stonefield Castle, one of our favourite hotels in Scotland. We explored the Kintyre region south of the hotel, and naturally it rained. It was a lovely trip though, and we celebrated Ash’s birthday as well as Bonnie’s first birthday!

Read more: Getting Our Kicks On Kintyre: An Underrated Scottish Road Trip

We also used the Historic Scotland free Sundays to visit Dumbarton Castle, which is a brilliant castle on top of a rock somewhere between Glasgow and Loch Lomond. It was very good, and one I recommend if you want to see an off-the-beaten-track castle that ought to be more visited.

And we used another weekend to visit our parents up on the Moray coast, which would have been Ash’s first proper drive on the motorway!

April – Bute, Easter family do

April started to get busier, and a couple of weeks after our Argyll trip, we went to the other part of the county: Bute. This very accessible island turned out to be one of our favourite wee jaunts of the year. We visited the most unbelievable building, Mount Stuart house, with its starry ceiling that needs to be seen to be believed.

Read more: A Car-Free Adventure On The Isle Of Bute, Scotland

The following week, it was my aunt & uncle’s diamond wedding anniversary, so we had a big family do around Hartlepool, about two hours south of us. We rented a house over Easter for us, my parents and my two sisters, and it was a lovely getaway, and great to catch up with family who mostly hadn’t seen each other since our wedding in 2021.

We also had Ash’s brother and his girlfriend in town (not staying with us) so we saw them a few times while they were here – and then he chose a lovely Edinburgh spot to propose to her!

May – day trips

I don’t remember a lot about May, except for my parents visiting for the carriage driving trials at the end of the month. This was actually great to watch, as we used to do carriage driving back in Orkney, so my parents have been meaning to come down to watch the annual show since we moved here!

Bonnie was spayed, so we couldn’t go out for a couple of weeks, but once she had recovered, we did a really nice day trip to the Trossachs where we went out on a boat to an island with an abbey. Another very underrated attraction in Scotland!

Read more: How To Spend Two Days In The Trossachs: An Alternative to Loch Lomond

June – lots of visitors

We didn’t go anywhere in June… and it was absolutely bananas.

Following on from my folks visiting, a friend came to stay on their way south, then stayed with us again for a few days on the way back north. In between, my uncle visited for a weekend and we visited the rail museum in Bo’ness (another very underrated attraction!) and also did part of the Fife Coastal Walk.

And then while our pal was here the second time around, one of Ash’s best friends was also here for two weeks, doing a course for his work nearby. He had on-site accommodation during the week, but he came to stay with us for the weekend in between and came to ours most evenings.

Don’t get me wrong, it was fun. But it was a lot! Oh, and we ended up looking after a hamster for a week. Just don’t even ask!

July – Orkney, London (ish)

July did not calm down. We spent a lovely week in Orkney, which in fairness was far more relaxed than a lot of our trips home are. We went with Ash’s parents and it was great because they’d been before, so they didn’t need to do all the main tourist attractions, and we could focus on taking them to all our favourite places instead!

We also managed to get to a couple of islands, which we’re trying to do on each visit now because it’s embarrassing how few I’d been to. This time, we went to Westray to see the adorable puffins, and then took an overnight trip to Sanday which lives up to its name with superb sandy beaches.

It was a fantastic holiday, albeit very strange visiting without my parents there for the first time ever…

The following weekend, it was my best pal’s hen do. I’m gonna be real: this was a pain in the arse to organise. It was meant to be in Edinburgh, and it ended up being in Buckinghamshire. Please do not even ASK, lest you get an 18 page rant. FRONT AND BACK.

The important thing is it ended up being a lovely weekend with all the best people! We rented a big house in the middle of nowhere (perfect for me to get to), and had a really chill time relaxing in the pool (when it wasn’t raining) and the amazing hot tub. Turns out the house was owned by the son of a movie director and there were film memorabilia and photos from film sets all over the house. Standard.

I had to take the train to and from London, and it’s the first time I’ve ever been and not really seen or done anything. I did book a later train home though, which gave me a couple of hours to wander Marylebone and finally check out Daunt Books, a travel bookshop. And yes, it’s as fantastic as everyone says it is!

August – England road trip & wedding

A hen do means only one thing: August was WEDDING TIME!

Because it was at the other end of the UK, we decided to make a long road trip out of it with a pal who was also coming to the wedding, visiting friends and family along the way. We stayed in a cute place just outside Newcastle to get a head start on the journey after work, and then in Sheffield where we caught up with a couple of pals and went to some great pubs.

We also stopped in Durham, Pontefract, Lincoln and Peterborough across the two full days, and just as the end was in sight, we promptly got stuck on the M1 outside London for a couple of hours due to a crash. Our friend took a very rare photo standing on a completely empty motorway!

After arriving very, very late, we then stayed with our to-be-wedded friends for a few days. It’s the first time we’ve been down to Sussex with a car since we moved away in 2015, which is ridiculous. Needless to say, there was a LOT of catching up to do. We spent three days whizzing about seeing as many people as possible (on day two, it was, literally, coffee with one friend, lunch with another friend, afternoon at another friend’s house, and evening with a group of more friends) and doing last-minute wedding prep. Oh, and we picked up a piano. (Once again… please do not even ask!!!)

And then we dropped Bonnie off at a dog-sitter, and I went to stay an hour and a half from the wedding venue with the bride. Please. I am not even joking. Miraculously, we survived the morning commute and I even did all my own hair and make up (yes… who needs bridal hair & make up anyway…?!!!??!) despite never having my hair up or wearing any make up.

And then – the wedding went perfectly! It was so unapologetically theirs, with a medieval banquet in the main hall, drinks with taverna covers of rock songs playing in the background, followed by a DJ playing actual rock music in the evening. Something poetic about a bride & groom leaping around to Limp Bizkit.

After the wedding, we came home via… hang on a minute. Right, we stayed with my sister in Oxfordshire for a couple of nights, with a quick stop in the Cotswolds, and then drove up to Liverpool(ish), where I dropped Ash off at the airport and then went to stay with my aunt. Ash flew to the Isle Of Man for less than 24 hours, and the next day I went to see my sister in Manchester for a couple of hours before meeting Ash and his parents somewhere up the road (not before I got diverted through Preston).

You think I’m joking. There was already a lot of juggling involved, and then Ash’s brother, on the Isle Of Man, held an engagement do that weekend. I’m glad we managed to figure out a way for Ash to go, but honestly, what a completely mad couple of days!

It didn’t calm down from there, because Ash’s parents stopped at ours for a night on their way home from the engagement party. The day they left, our friend who had joined us on the road trip came back to ours for a few days, and we went to see Chappell Roan! She was fantastic.

September – MORE visitors and a trip to Barra

September began with yet another visitor! This time it was a last-minute surprise by a friend from Canada. It’s lucky we were available! I stepped up and showed her around Edinburgh, and at the weekend we managed to get out to Glencoe and even watched the train go over Glenfinnan viaduct. A long day, but it was brilliant! Glad we managed to make it work, and it was great to catch up.

The following weekend, we went to Barra for the fantastic flight where you land on the beach. This was a great weekend, and fairly relaxed other than getting to and from Glasgow airport, and struggling to ride a bike. My folks came to visit us so they could look after Bonnie.

Over the next week, our friend doing the course was back for the next module, but this time it was only a week so he just came to visit for a couple of evenings.

And then the week after that, you’ll never guess what happened. We had ANOTHER visitor! She was coming up to see Frank Turner in Edinburgh, so I went along to that which was great fun. Unfortunately we planned to re-create the perfect Glencoe/Glenfinnan day from earlier in the month, but we only had one weekend day, and after the forecast predicting the odd shower with sunshine, it suddenly changed to the worst weather you could imagine for an outdoorsy day. 95+% chance of *extremely* heavy rain from 7am until 9pm. I rarely see “95+%” on the forecast, let alone for 14 hours straight!

…and the entirety of Scotland was the same. EXCEPT the Cairngorms, which wasn’t due to rain until 2pm. So that’s what we did instead; the entire Cairngorms, in fact, because we drove to Aviemore, got hot drinks on the highest beach in the UK (where a wasp flew into my tea), watched the newly-running funicular railway in action, and then drove the long way back down the other side of the Cairngorms. (This really is a long way; I’m not doing all that again in one day!)

I’m disappointed I didn’t get to show her Glencoe, but she’ll be back – in May, as it happens. That was only decided yesterday! Anyway, because of the incoming deluge of rain, I took her to Loch Lomond one evening after I finished work, so she at least got to see both national parks in Scotland. And I showed her around a lot of Edinburgh too!

October – Switzerland & Liechtenstein

A whole nine months after our last trip abroad, in which time they say you can create an entire human, we finally jetted off again! Because of the lack of travel, we decided to go all out and do Switzerland properly, which as you can imagine for a 10 day trip, required more funds than say, 10 days in Eastern Europe. But it’s rare that we’ve been able to afford a trip like that, so we might as well make the most of it.

We flew in and out of Zurich, and visited Lucerne, the Bernese Oberland (Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Interlaken, Brienz and more), Zermatt, Chur, Italy for lunch (standard), and Liechtenstein for a couple of days. Highlights were Lauterbrunnen in general, eating fondue in a gondola in Grindelwald, riding the Gelmerbahn, hiking near the Matterhorn on the most glorious day possible, riding both the Glacier and Bernina Express, and trekking with llamas in Liechtenstein.

This was one of our best trips ever! Unfortunately, Switzerland is now one of my favourite countries, which means I have expensive taste after all.

I’ve written pretty extensively about our time in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, so go check out a few of my posts!

Some highlight posts –
⭐ A Spectacular 10 Day Rail Itinerary In Switzerland & Liechtenstein
⭐ Lauterbrunnen, Interlaken & More: Three Incredible Days In The Bernese Oberland, Switzerland
⭐ A Day In Zermatt & A Million Photos Of The Matterhorn
⭐ Glacier Express vs Bernina Express: Which Swiss Panoramic Train Is Better?
⭐ How To Spend Two Days In Liechtenstein – And Is The Adventure Pass Worth It?

November – Glasgow & Tallinn

November, thankfully, was a much quieter month. For the most part. Only three visitors.

One of my besties came down for a long weekend and we went to see a childhood fave band – Five! We had a lovely day out in Glasgow for it. The following weekend, another bestie visited with his girlfriend bookending a trip to Europe with staying at ours.

Jet2 also kindly sent me out on their inaugural flight to Tallinn, which led to quite a big surprise. Ash had decided to sit this one out (the offer came the very day after he said “I’m not doing any more trips this year”!!), and my travel buddy from work was away on her own adventure, so I invited my absolute non-travel parents. As expected, Mum said no. Then I heard Dad in the background – “I’d be quite keen actually!”

And so it was that through this blog, I managed to take my Dad on a special trip to the Baltic Christmas markets! It was his first time abroad via plane in about 50 years (we went to France & Belgium for the day about 15 years ago via car… and that’s the only time he’s been abroad at all in that time) and his first time on a plane in, we think, 18 years.

It was a brilliant trip, and I thought 3 nights in Tallinn might be a bit too long, especially as I’ve been there before, but it was the perfect amount of time to be able to relax in between seeing everything.

Read more: A Magical Medieval Christmas Market Break In Tallinn

December – NOTHING, thank God

Originally, I was planning to spend a weekend in Poznan, for my fourth annual trip to Poland. It would also be my “Christmas market trip”, so Tallinn conveniently took that spot mere days before I was going to book it. I carried on keeping an eye on flights anyway, and then it all fell apart when our work’s Christmas do was booked for the night before the early flight, and the other weekend was too expensive. So it clearly wasn’t meant to be, but maybe next year.

So instead, I have done NOTHING! I put all our decorations up with far more time, energy and gusto than the past few years. I’ve been organised with presents, and even had time to work on the blog.

We just spent a lovely Christmas up near Inverness with both our families, including Ash’s sister who he’s never spent Christmas with! It was a great laugh, filled with games and far too much food (of course).

I also got a new camera (thank you, Ash!), an upgrade from my current Sony Alpha mirrorless to an a6400, so I can’t wait to play around with that in the new year.

Highlights of 2025

Here are my five highlights of the year:

• Hiking near the Matterhorn – we had the most perfect day possible in Zermatt, so we hopped straight on the Gornergrat train and did some hiking! This was one of my favourite days ever. There were plenty of other Switzerland highlights, but this would take some beating.
• The flight to Barra – a bucket-list item that I’ve been meaning to tick off for YEARS! It was absolutely brilliant and once again, we had the perfect weather for it. As proven by the terrible weather for our return flight, that really did make a big difference.
• Spending my birthday in Madeira – this was another favourite trip! We fell head over heels for Madeira and loved everything about it. I never go away for my birthday so it was great to spend it hiking on a spectacular island and we were even given a free bottle of bubbly in our room on the day.
• Getting to take my Dad on a trip – my collaboration with Jet2 came out of the blue, but what surprised me even more was that my Dad decided to join me! What a treat – for both of us, I hope.
• Watching one of my best friends getting married – watching them get engaged (in Japan!) was a highlight of 2024, and now getting to witness such a special day was even better.

On the blog

Some big news for the blog – I finally bit the bullet and I’ve changed hosts! In light of that, I’m able to run ads that earn much more than the shitey WordAds, and I have more flexibility over plugins and scripts.

The blog has been going from strength to strength this year, with 50,000 views per month at the moment, but the volatility of blogging is still very much at play with Google algorithms and the dreaded AI (ugh), and I’m riding the wave while I can. Most of my traffic comes in to a handful of posts – my most popular post by far, weirdly, is what we bought in Japan. Now that I’ve finally invested a bit more into it, what’s the betting it suddenly plummets?

Moving hosts became stressful when, a couple of weeks before, I suddenly got hit by a load of Chinese bot traffic. My stats went totally out of whack which is not what I needed when I was going to be applying to an ad program where you get accepted based on stats! As a result, I had to wait a whole month after I moved, so that I could block the traffic and have a clear month of actual stats; losing a month of revenue during my highest traffic, and now finally earning again during December, my worst month. The timing could not have been worse!

Then when I moved to the new host, my theme wasn’t compatible and I had to install a new theme with lots of tweaking before it could even go live. And THEN loads of my photos didn’t work and I had to spend several evenings and late nights frantically trying to fix it all before we went to Switzerland. “I’ve never seen this happen before”, my host said. Haha. Of course you haven’t. This kind of shit ONLY happens to me! Anyway, let me know if you spot anything amiss on any posts pre-October.

While the blog has gone an unprecedented amount of bananas, I’ve not been very active on social media at all. I joined Bluesky and Threads as a replacement for Twitter, but never really found my footing on either of them because I didn’t have the motivation to go all-in on both. I’ve kept up with Facebook, but it’s not exactly a community vibe. Feels like I’m talking at people rather than with people, if that makes sense.

Maybe I need to get more active on Instagram again?

Anyway, here are some other things I enjoyed this year.

Music

Chappell Roan

Chappell Roan is the best thing to come out of the pop industry in YEARS. I’ve been (overdue in) loving her album. She’s catchy, fun, her voice is phenomenal (or should I say femininominal?), her look is flawless… and then I saw her live in August, and HOLY SHIT. I think she’s even better live than on record. She puts on a hell of a show, especially for the fact she has one album. I’d go and see her again in an instant.

Electric Callboy

Err, slightly different genre, but still catchy AF. I put off listening to Electric Callboy for years because I assumed they were too heavy for me. I’m mostly right. But after constantly hearing how great they were live, I finally listened to a few songs… all of which have been in my most listened to songs this year! I haven’t seen them live yet, but apparently it’s just one wild party. I can’t imagine many bands putting on more of a fun live show. If you want more heavy rock rave vibes, We Got The Moves gets me pumped up EVERY TIME.

Josh Ramsay’s cover of Defying Gravity

Going for something a bit different here, but this is more than just the song itself. I haven’t even seen the Wicked movie yet, although I’ve seen the stage show. Josh Ramsay of Marianas Trench is one of my favourite singers of all time, and he was recently challenged to come up with a version of Defying Gravity. Single-handedly. IN A SINGLE DAY. Please, if you enjoy music and are interested in the behind-the-scenes process of making it, watch the above video. It is MINDBLOWING. Josh has gone from being one of my favourite singers to one of my favourite musicians. His creativity in this whole video is unbelievable, and I’m so glad loads of people are discovering him and MT from this!

Books

I’ve been a bit better with reading again, but I’ve only really got one stand-out book.

Love In Colour by Bolu Babalola

This series of short stories is so beautifully written, I found it hard to put down once I started each story. The tales are alternative takes on legends, focusing on women with different strengths and intertwining mythical stories with modern culture. This is a book I’m looking forward to reading all over again, which, I’ve got to be honest, is a rarity for me because there are too many other books to read! I think the bitesize chapters make it easy to digest so it’s easier to read parts of it again.

Also, I’ve just finished Colleen Hoover’s Verity, and found it really disappointing. Seems like I’m not alone in that… have any of you read it?

Some of my top online reads of the year as well, as I like to include a few of these:
Life in a sinking nation – Tuvalu’s dreams of dry land
Where No Man Roams – Lessons From A Professional Trespasser
Everything Is Propaganda Now
For 17 Years, Swedish Scientists Were Sneaking Bob Dylan Song Titles into Their Research Papers as Part of a Bet
And one of my favourite news stories from Scotland:
A Sign Of Humour: The mystery behind Glasgow’s fake street signs

Films & TV shows

In contrast, we haven’t watched many new films or TV shows this year… but here are a couple that I’ve loved.

Stranger Things

I’ve got to be honest – it felt like the final season of Stranger Things was going to be a slog. 2.5 hour episodes? In the era of 30 second TikTok videos, this seemed like a bizarre decision. Add in the length of time it’s taken them to make this season, and you’d be forgiven for forgetting it exists at this point! When we finished season four, we couldn’t wait for the finale, but now that it’s here, it took us weeks to finally get around to watching it.

And yet we devoured the first four without even realising that some of them were an hour and a half long.

The Outrun

This actually came out in 2024 but it took us a while to watch it because Bonnie was too young for us to leave her for a cinema visit when it was released. It’s based on a memoir by an Orcadian, about recovery from alcoholism. In it, the protagonist has moved to London, kickstarting a wild life of drink. She then moves back to Orkney to find a road to recovery in the wild isles. The film is raw, moving and perfectly executed by Saoirse Ronan. There are a lot of mixed reviews out there so I went in with a pretty open mind, and honestly I loved it.

I haven’t actually read the book yet, but it’s on the never-ending list.

Overall, it’s been a great year, yet another exhausting one. We’ve done quite a few things that I haven’t written about in standalone posts (such as anything on the April or August road trips, anything from June to August at all, and any day-trip Scotland adventures other than the Trossachs) but I’m hoping to work on more UK content next year.

We’ve done pretty well with Scottish islands this year, with trips to Bute, Orkney (three islands, if you don’t include the interconnected islands) and Barra. We still haven’t made it to Arran, but surely next year?

So, speaking of which: what’s coming up in 2026?

In a moment of madness, I’ve booked a quick overnight trip in January to… Alicante. Not somewhere I have ever considered visiting, but I’ve learned in recent years that it gets to the end of January and I’m craving sun badly – so a cheap break to Spain that I could do without taking time off work seemed logical.

Other than that? Hopefully Canada! We haven’t been since 2018, and we/I have a habit of visiting Canada every year ending 6 and 8 (2006, 2008, 2016 and 2018…). My aunt and uncle aren’t getting any younger, so we’d really like to visit while we can still do things with them. Another aunt really wants to go to Vienna, so that’s hopefully another (shorter) plan!

We also have quite a few places in Scotland that we’d like to spend more time, because between all our visitors this year, we’ve barely had time for any spontaneous adventures! Our only weekend trips have been Argyll/Kintyre, Bute and Barra.

On the cards for next year: Mull with Ash’s parents. Perthshire with my parents. ARRAN. Lochinver. Aberdeenshire. Wester Ross. I swear those last few have been on the list for the past three years.

Regardless, hopefully plenty more photos to come with my new camera.

Let’s see what it brings!

Hope you all have a fantastic Hogmanay, and happy new year when it comes. 🙂