2013: the year in review

the past few years have each brought a transition or two. 2009 had the mister graduating, us braving a mortgage and me going to stockholm on exchange, 2010 saw me graduate and the mister get called to the bar. in 2011, the mister popped the question, i got called to the bar then promptly uprooted to the UK, in that order! 2012 was the mister's turn to up sticks to london and we married over midsummer before moving into our first home together. so when i wrote the last update, i was feeling all grown up having recently acquired a spouse and a house! 

then last week, one of the doctors on the ward asked me what i'd like to be when i grow up. and while a BIG part of me was thrilled to have been mistaken for an undergrad (yay for azn genes!), another part was a little indignant. i wanted to flash my wedding band in his face and go "hey! i'm probably older than you!" and that's when i realised being married counts for nothing, and as a graduate medic, i'm right back to the bottom of that proverbial ladder. ouchie. it's also sobering that my fellow pupil has been a senior associate for a year. had i stayed on, i'd be about three years away from junior partnership. which really put things into perspective. 

2013 has been good to us, and it's great to be done with big life transitions. barring any accidents, there shouldn't be too many transitions for a while. this year, like those before, we've prioritised travel and adventure, with a focus on local travel.

we saw in the new year on primrose hill, sandwiched between rastafarians and schoolgirls past their curfew, i was back in singers for a couple of days before returning to sit exams while horribly jetlagged. never again! after my exams, the mister took me to the lakes for a mid-week break, and the following weekend we went to bergen. we were lucky to squeeze a couple of days out and spend chinese new year in singers with family, although giving hong bao for the first time stung :( 

in march, i went on a little cooking spree and we caught sigur ros in concert! we finally got round to going on our honeymoon, having not had time last year. to placate me, we did mini-moon in phuket after our singapore celebration, but i'd been insistent on a proper faraway holiday. almost as if to spite me (marriage off to a wonderful start!), the mister planned a trip to the galapagos. to which i whinged a little too publicly about being outwitted once again as it involved sleeping in tents, hiking and kayaking, neither of which i particularly enjoy. but the beauty of no expectations is that i ended up having a wonderful wonderful time in spite of myself, and we met a really lovely bunch of people. well done, mister. good effort encouraging my personal development! while we were in the galapagos, my darling rottie fathered the most adorable litter of eight and i was swooning over them from thousands of miles away. driven by abject fear and desperation, i hunkered down for exams in may before making the most of my last three month summer. having already enjoyed six such long breaks (four as an undergrad and two in medical school) it was high time i (wo)manned up. 

my darling sister visited us in london and we went to brighton then paris, we celebrated our first wedding anniversary early with dear friends (based down under and stateside) then met the mister's folks in barca to celebrate some more. they stayed on with us in london after, and the rest of summer passed in a blur of meeting up with the huge confluence of friends who were passing through the city. we'd endless picnics in the park, ate outdoors at every opportunity and our tiny flat turned into a revolving door b&b. but it wasn't all social, and there were some quiet stretches where i'd wander out with a book and the mister would meet me wherever i ended up when he was done with work. we drove to wales, and to dover, and made our way across the channel in the amazing channel tunnel to spend the mister's birthday in bruges. in august we had some bonus time in singers when the mister's work brought him home, and then roadtripped norway before i started clinicals in september.

clinicals have been a steep learning curve, but it was a huge relief to find out that i really enjoy dealing with patients and thankfully they seem not to mind me too much! phew :) when we'd some time, we continued exploring the UK, with a double date at the much-hyped fat duck with friends. we also thought to explore the north with visits on different weekends to northumberland and the scottish border. we finally got round to checking out bath, having only passed through during summer 2012 en route to the cotswolds. rounding up the year with more traveling, we had the good fortune to be hosted by the most gracious friends in lucerne before christmas, and spent christmas week in a ski lodge on a deal so irresistable i was certain it was an internet scam... that kind of brings us all the way to where we are now. 

looking forward to more of the same, in the best possible way, in 2014. we're relishing this time 'just us' because at the back of our minds, we hope it won't always be the case. slowly starting to warm to the idea of children, but the mister was one step ahead of me, as always. he splurged on a first anniversary present that has effectively rendered us unable to afford a child for a few years yet. why, thanks... ironically, he's the better of the two with children! we were walking to brunch on saturday when a horde of little girls dressed in red came up to him and trilled ever so sweetly (according to him), "we're the red team!". apparently i recoiled in horror and looked around frantically for their adult to get them away from us while the mister was cool / nurturing / encouraging. i look at the few people i know of who are young / accidental  parents and think their situation is unenviable. interrupted careers, no time to get used to enjoy just being a wife before being a mother, no uninterrupted sleep, can't travel anywhere without screaming spawn? aiyoh so poor thing. then again, when everyone else is 40 and undergoing IVF, said young parents will have the last laugh. 

i think so much of our life goals are shaped by what our parents had accomplished by the same age. mine married in their early twenties and only had me in their early thirties, which seems like a reasonable guideline :) by the time he'd reached the big 3-0, the mister's father was already a papa of two and had just been posted to new york where the mister spent his early childhood. so the life goal benchmark is slightly accelerated on that side of the family. yet i maintain that there's a season for everything, just like how 2013-2014 is the time to focus on growth and becoming better at the things we do. 

thank you very much for reading, and for stopping by now and again. it means a lot to me every time i see i've more than two readers (the mister and my grandmother) on blogger stats. wishing you and yours happy holidays, and even more love and light in your life come 2014.