These first days of the brand new year hold lots of hope and promises and looking forward, we can’t help looking back: to remember what’s worth remembering and to quickly dismiss what’s worth forgetting.
Join me on this little 2018 retrospective:
‘The only time you should ever look back is to see how far you’ve come’
Jan-Feb
Similar to nature, the hibernating months…also ‘let’s quickly forget’ months with lots of hospital visits, insecurity on the thyroid matter and ongoing back-related problems. Fast forward, shall we?!
Mar-Apr
Comes Spring, comes joy…and midweek breaks! We, that is husband and me, visited cosy Maastricht in the Netherlands and vibrant London and in own garden colourful bluebells reign
May-Jun
Refuelled we kept chasing sunshine with a trip to Belgian seaside, local food festivals and wonderful Valletta, European cultural capital 2018, on the island of Malta.
Jul/Aug
Returning from Malta brought feet quickly back onto the ground: in full Summer mode my inner cruise control broke down and some weird health issues (on top of the existing back problems) surfaced.
Only a short birthday trip to Utrecht, Netherlands, and a lot of trips to doctor’s office.
Son Nick went to Madrid with srps.me and had his wallet stolen on last day, drama, drama, though still mr cool guy here
Approching end of August, and luckily feeling a bit better again, in own country, sun was still spreading glorious warmth though the various tasting festivals at wine estates, and the daily growing in size of our own home grapes gently suggested Autumn was on it’s way.
And house cat Wiskie closely watches them shift colour…or not…those afternoon naps are important too, right?!
Together with shooting partner-in-crime Eddy I explored Tervuren…
…and joined EffenWeg on some inspiring nature walks.
Sept/Oct
Again most trips were to and from hospital, pain at full force peaking-level.
Had to check calendar, but had one (wow!) sort or less doable weekend/week in those two months, and we used that to explore Flanders Westhoek while staying at marvellous B&B ‘Ons Content’ and another shooting trip with Eddy…when I’m more or less well, or at least something that comes close to that definition in my book, it’s all about making the very best of those little getaways!.
Nov/Dec
Short getaway nature break to Luxemburg’s inspiring Müllerthal. The below photo might seem idyllic and as far as surroundings and company it was of course but with balance and vision letting me down walking took a lot of effort and often needed a walking stick, fortunately branches à volonté in the woods 😉
Back home finally some answers on the health issues: got MS diagnosis and immediate start-up of the medication to prevent further deterioration.
Had a fun and inspiring photoshoot Life-Live, a project that you can read all about here Up, close and personal…
‘Everything has changed and yet I am more me than I have ever been’
And now what?
…We’ll set course for the good life and navigate around the obstacles as best as possible
no fixed plans yet this year holiday-wise, so all options are open, except for a fun and kinda last-minute trip coming up very very soon (read Febr): hubby and myself will be spending some time in Doha, Qatar, together with my aunt and uncle we’ll be visiting my nephew (their son) who lives there, so that will be a family reunion embraced by loved ones and warmth of the sun, the best kind!
Ingrid
xxx
The Back Road Chronicles 