Most people will look back on 2016 and remember it for the sheer number of notable celebrity deaths. The year began with Bowie and Alan Rickman fans in bits, and went out with us saying a sad goodbye to Carrie Fisher and George Michael. For some of us, for me, we’ve lost someone incredibly important in our own lives. In my case it was my Dad.

For me 2016 began with a high. I was determined to make this whole blogging thing a success and to build on the previous few years of hard work. January began well with a blog post in the style of a school newsletter going a little bit viral. So I rolled my sleeves up and prepared to get cracking with life. Life however had different plans.

It’s hard to write a retrospective of a year like 2016. My Dad died at the end of June and my brain has almost completely deleted everything before that date, and everything after just feels a bit funny.

I’ve just scrolled back through my Instagram feed to refresh my memory and it looks like the first half of 2016 was lovely and lively. I took up crafting in earnest, attended a gin festival, won a holiday to Majorca, went to Blog Camp with a heavily pregnant friend (I binge watched Call the Midwife beforehand just in case). We had a holiday in Devon, trips to festivals, I ate and made a lot of good food and I bought a fancy camera.  

Then my Dad died. 

And I wrote a bunch of posts about grief and how I was coping. I don’t know how I coped, but I had to. I went into myself for a good few months, my Instagram feed definitely reflects that, just the occasional photo of something I baked or something we did.

My blogging was the same. For all the reviews and write ups I do, I try (and will try harder) to make my blog a reflection of my life. The fact that there were no truly personal blog posts for months is only because I really couldn’t face opening the box inside me which contained my thoughts and feelings. Because if I did that then I’d need to acknowledge them and I didn’t have the strength to do that.

Every so often I do open my box of grief and feelings and it all pours out. I quickly slam the lid shut and turn the key in the lock. But I do feel myself wanting to write again and wanting to talk about those feelings inside me. Feelings most of us will experience at some time in our lives.

The last six months of 2016 have been busy, we did a lot of healing at the Just So Festival and we had our much needed holiday to Majorca in October. I had a jaunt to River Cottage with some blogger chums, and we went to Lapland UK in December. We’ve done a hundred wonderful things as a family and as a result our little unit of three has grown much closer. Then we three became four.

We welcomed this monkey into our home. She’s a joy, she’s a distraction, she’s a menace, but we love her. She’s the four-legged piece of the puzzle we needed to complete our family jigsaw. 

2016 will not be remembered with much fondness or joy by me. It’s a year which has completely changed my life forever. Some of it for the good I’ll admit, but a bit of my heart broke in June and it will never heal.

As for 2017, my hopes and ambitions for the next 12 months are modest. I’d like for me and the people I care about to survive the year unscathed. I really hope that isn’t too much to ask for.

Happy New Year, let’s hope 2017 gives us a better run of luck!