As I mentioned in my previous post, 2017 has been an amazing year and I've achieved so much more than I thought I could when I made my 2017 goals.

I didn't manage all of them, but some of them I smashed out of the park so that makes up for it ;)

Money Goals

1. Replenish our savings

As I'm sure you can imagine buying our house has taken its toll on our savings so this year I want to try and help them recover a bit so we have a more adequate rainy day fund. 

2. Repay Kiera

My sister very kindly lent me some money to buy my new carriage when I had none. I have paid her back more than half now but this year I want the debt to be finally wiped out. 

3. Save enough for some sort of mini break

We might manage this or we might not as we have other priorities for our money but it would be good if we could manage a weekend away somewhere this year. 

Travel

4. Visit Rome

This was actually one of my 2016 goals and this year we are definitely making it happen because it's all already booked! 

Jared and I are going to Rome in late April for our five year anniversary. 

I've always wanted to go back and explore more and I'm really excited about it. Jared's Mum very kindly bought me a guide book for Christmas so looking forward to putting that to good use.

5.  Visit more local attractions on our doorstep

We made a good start on this in 2017 but there are lots more places to see in the immediate area that we live in. I want to make an effort to visit these before we head further afield. 

Development

6. Pass my first financial exam

This is a big one for me this year as I am back to studying. I am officially a student again and have a NUS card to prove it. 

I am sitting my first CII qualification and have started studying for the first module. I am aiming to pass this as soon as possible so hopefully I can get back to studying in the New Year.

Blogging

7. Sort out my domain name

I have actually owned the domain name for this blog for years but because I'm not very good with computers I haven't managed to successfully set it up.

This year I want to get this sorted as I think it will make my blog a little nicer, plus I am currently paying for something I'm not using which is daft.

8. Create some categories

I want to change the layout of my blog a little and make it easier to navigate. As I'm not the most tech savvy person in the world I'm not sure if I'll be able to manage this but I want to give it a go!

Home and Lifestyle

9. Spruce up the outside of the house

Now that we have redecorated the inside of our house, I want to give a bit of attention to the exterior. 

Our windows and fascias need repainting and I'd like to improve the garden a bit.

I've thought of a few small and easily achievable ideas that I'd like to try, more on that at a later date!

10. Grow more stuff

I've always loved growing things and I spend many happy hours in the garden with my mum and grandmothers as a child. 

As I've got older I always try and grow something at home, but I'm always a bit half hearted with it. 

Now that Jared and I have our own house I want to try and grow a few new things I haven't tried before. Thanks to Cider With Rosie for sharing her veg growing excitement and inspiring me to continue with my old lady hobbies ;)

Exploring Wiltshire - Visiting Old Sarum

The August bank holiday weekend already feels like it was years ago rather than just a few weekends back. The Friday before the bank holiday was such a great day. First off, it was payday, which is always a great start to any Friday. The forecast for the weekend was fab and it was already sunny on Friday. My work treated us to bacon sandwiches and let us go home at 4pm! To top it all I had the whole following week off work. I was practically skipping by the end of the day.

We spent the Sunday of the bank holiday visiting Old Sarum to watch the medieval joust. For those who aren't familiar with Wiltshire, Old Sarum is the earliest settlement in Salisbury and lies about 2 miles north of the current city. The site itself has been settled since prehistoric times and the fort dates from the Iron Age. 

It was later controlled by the Romans and the Saxons where it was used as a stronghold against the Vikings. The Normans built the Motte and Bailey castle and the cathedral, the remains of which can still be seen today.

When construction began for the new (and current) cathedral in Salisbury during the 13th century Old Sarum began to decline and many of the buildings were used to provide stone for the newer buildings. 

If you have any interest in history this is well worth a visit and isn't as packed as some of Wiltshire's more popular sites (and by that I mean Stonehenge). It's really cool to walk around it and imagine what it must have been like to live there. 

My parents used to take me to visit when I was little as it's a great day out for small children, plenty of room to run around safely and history that is actually tangible enough for even little kids to understand.

Jared has never been and what better day to go then when the fort is playing host to a medieval joust? The sunshine was glorious, we packed a picnic and spent a day enjoying the sunshine.

There was plenty to watch with the falconry display and the knights displaying their skill at arms.

Finally at the end of the day there was the joust itself, which was action packed and great to watch!

If you're ever in Wiltshire and you're looking for things to do that showcase the history of the area, then Old Sarum is a must see.

We have so much history right on our doorstep here in the UK, that sometimes I think we don't make enough of an effort to get out there and actually see it. 

Plus the view from the top, overlooking the modern city is pretty cool as well.

Have you ever visited? Or do you have something awesome near your home town worth seeing? Let me know! I'm always looking for new things to see and do!

Visiting Oxford

One of my goals for this year was to go and visit my best friend Ann in Exeter before she graduated. Sadly, we were both too busy to manage it and the time just flew by this year. Before I knew it, she was prancing across the stage looking fabulous in her gown so I would have to take my trip there some other time. To be honest I've been to Exeter several times, the goal was more about making time to visit Ann this year.

Luckily though another goal was to take a day trip to Oxford which happens to be pretty close to where Ann lives... So I've switched it up a bit and jumped in the car a few weeks ago to go and visit her. 

First off getting there was not straight forward as the road into her village was closed. I ended up driving around in circles for about 25 minutes trying to follow the really poorly signed diversion, which kept bringing me out at dead ends because the roads were shut. Eventually I found myself in a village I recognised and figured it out from there, but it was pretty stressful! Don't you just adore living in England with our crap tiny roads and love of shutting important things (like ROADS) on Sundays?

The village Ann lives in is lucky enough to have it's own station so we jumped straight on the train to Oxford. I've always wanted to visit and I've got no idea why I haven't already when it really isn't that far from where I live. 

We were also so lucky with the weather and had glorious sunshine for the whole day. The forecast had said it was going to rain so I was totally not dressed for the sun, but isn't that the fun of a day trip to somewhere in Britain, being unprepared for the weather?

So we spent most of our trip just wandering about and looking at all the spires and listening to the bells tolling. When I got home and looked at my phone we had walked nearly 12km! No wonder it felt like we did a fair chunk of walking. Top tip, if you're planning a trip to Oxford, where flat and comfortable shoes. The city is small and flat and every thing is in walking distance so you will do a lot of walking about.

We went to visit Brasenose College which is where one of best friends is at uni. It is quite literally a whole world away from the gross pebbledashed building (that used to be a hostel) next door to the city crematorium that I lived in when I was in halls at uni. Shout out to any Bencraft people who might read this (you know you'd rather be from Bencraft). Our halls may have been rank to look at it but the people in there made up for it <3

For real though, it actually looks like a magical place to live and study with all the amazing old buildings. With the one exception of the Earth Science building which is this horrible new modern construction, that does not jive with the rest of the city in my opinion. Thankfully I'm not clever enough to get into Oxford because imagine being SO DISAPPOINTED when you arrived and then found out your lectures were in the only ugly building in the whole damn city. 

For lunch we went to M&S and grabbed some picnic food before heading to Christ Church meadow to sit under a shady tree. We sat here for ages chatting and watching the world go by. If you take a trip here and it's a nice day I would highly recommend doing this. Heck be more organised than us and pack yourself a picnic because the meadow is gorgeous and it's a great spot to really soak up the atmosphere.

We spent most of the afternoon exploring the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. This was rather like visiting an excellent, scaled down version of the Natural History Museum, which I love but there is SO much to see, it's hard to squeeze everything in. 

My favorite part was looking at their fossil and mineral collections as it was pretty extensive and they had some really cool exhibits (geology nerd over here). The best part was that it was free as I'm really trying to watch my spending at the moment so it was kind on the wallet too. 

It was such a lovely day and so nice to just spend so many hours wandering about with one of my oldest friends and have a chance for a really great catch up.

Oxford, I love you. I'll be coming back! Let me know if you have any tips of places that I should visit or eat at on my next trip there!