Bon Année!

Happy New Year!

2014 absolutely flew by didn't it? Looking back on my year I realise how many of life's significant moments happened within those 365 days. I graduated, began a real career and got engaged, and I still managed to fit in lots of other amazingly memorable experiences along the way.

There was no better way to see off the fabulous year than to go to France with Isaac and two of our good friends Jimmy and Bekah. Isaac and Jimmy were performing at an event in Valence called "Mad in France". We had an amazing time and the guys put on a really good performance!

On New Year's Day we went exploring around Valence... I say 'exploring' lightly because it didn't take us long to realise that we weren't in London and NOTHING was open.

Apart from Macdonalds.

Although, we did visit a cute bandstand with the most gorgeous back drop of the frosty mountains and trees. I found out that this is where Isaac had originally thought he would propose to me, but he got too excited and couldn't wait an extra two weeks so we just re-enacted the proposal to make up for it, as you do.

We did find one open shop so I bought a macaroon because I didn't really fancy eating an entire baguette. I'm laughing to myself now at the fact I only bought one. Why did I buy one? Who buys ONE macaroon?... Its so small you can't even see it in the picture.

Once I had let the macaroon go down, we headed back to the hotel to get our stuff and leave for the airport. However, when we got there our electrical keys had all stopped working so we couldn’t get in the door. 

There were NO staff, because in France New Years day is basically hibernation day for what felt like the entire country, so we had to wait until someone else came out to get in. Myself and Bekah tried our key in our room with no luck. The same for Jimmy and Isaac. We realised we had been automatically checked out, but ALL our stuff was locked in our rooms. Schoolboy error.

With no staff, no stuff, and a plane to catch it looked pretty bleak for us. We found a French lady who helped us out and we managed to get hold of a member of staff to come to the hotel and let us in our rooms. I don’t think he was impressed. 

We finally made it to the airport (on-time even after the drama!) only to find that our flight was delayed for five hours! Easy Jet had decided New Years Day would be a perfect day to go on strike… 

So we sat and laughed and yawned and said “this is long” more times than I could count, until our flight was ready to take us back to the land of dreams and open shops...LONDON! 

One of my new years resolutions was to see the best in every situation… I think I was being tested. 

As I had a lot of free time to sit and think (a whole five hours) things like "what you're doing on New Year's Day is what you'll be doing the rest of the year" started running through my head. 

At that moment I had a choice. I could reflect on everything that had gone wrong that day; The deserted town, the locked hotel, the delayed flights. Or, I could look back on how many times I laughed that day, or that I got to spend even more time with some of my favourite people. Even the fact that I had the privilege of visiting another country!

It was a challenge to focus on the good, because for some reason it is SO much easier to focus on the bad. But practice makes perfect and I predict this year will be brighter if I choose to see the positives in every situation.

2015, I'm ready for ya!

Emma

  xx