Not everyone is lucky enough to have a bestie, but I do and she's pretty awesome. Stan (known to inferior mortals as Caroline) and I met in sixth form (when I was still making some pretty questionable hair and clothing choices) and have been finishing each other's sentences for most of the last decade. She was by my side as my maid of my honour on my wedding day and we have supported each other through every major life up and down of the London chapter of our lives. I don't have a sister, but then again, I sort of do.

Obviously, her new decade had to be celebrated and as a lover of the surprise it was only appropriate to organise a top secret weekend of fun. On the Saturday night Sam, Lucy and I  went for dinner at what I believe is London's very best restaurant, Fera at Claridges. Fera is the brainchild of Simon Rogan and serves delicate, delicious ethically sourced food in the most beautiful grey and green art deco room. It was a perfect venue to celebrate a very special lady.

On the Sunday we organised a larger surprise Sunday lunch at a pub that holds a lot of happy memories, the Stag Hampstead, with all of Stanley's friends in attendance. It was a perfect afternoon of laughter, roast beef and cake accompanied by (no, I am not kidding) the yapping of Nicole from All Saints tiny dogs!! One of our favourite thing about the Stag has always been that you are guaranteed to spot a celeb, and we were not disappointed.

All in all, it was a suitably wonderful weekend. And we still have our joint birthday trip to Lisbon to come ...

I am pleased to say that all February 2016 goals were duly completed. The photo above is from a particularly lovely brunch in Bath with my Dad and my Uncle; I was so glad I went home in the end.

This month's goals largely centre on  Sam's 30th birthday and our trip to Asia are thus all very pleasing:

• calmly execute the plans for Sam's surprise birthday weekend, this weekend!!
• cook a three course dinner for 18 people (menu now planned!), the largest group I have ever cooked for;
• blog Stanley (my bestie's) birthday;
• continue the contentment challenge (minus any essential items for our Asia trip);
• give internal presentation at work;
• make sure case load is in order before handing over to my colleagues during our Asia trip;
• enjoy every moment of our trip to Hong Kong and Singapore!!!

My 30th birthday came during my blog hiatus in November, but it was such a magical time that I cannot let it pass without a short post. I am so lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life and I just felt utterly surrounded by love. The highlights are set down for posterity below:

1. My black and gold 30th birthday party:

We hosted a party for 30 friends in the Tombshouse. I knew when we bought such a large house, so early in our lives that I wanted it's inaugural years to be filled with friendship and laughter. By taking our dining chairs out of the living room and covering the dining table with a glittery gold cloth and much champagne (which my lovely Daddy has been hoarding for the occasion since our champagne fuelled engagement party) our Victorian living room dining room transformed itself into a better cocktail party venue than any we could have hired. 

My incredible friend Liz made the most beautiful black and gold three tiered cake and we had a Paella man cooking the most delicious feast in the garden. It is the first time since our wedding we have had so many people we love in the same place and wonderfully the atmosphere had the same happy magic. Just thinking about it again makes my face ache with smiling and having had it at home, the memories of it are etched into the beginning of a long history we will make here.

2. ​My surprise trip to Copenhagen:

Many months before my birthday, Sam had told me to book the weekend of the 30 November off. For some reason I had absolutely got it into my head that he was going to take me away somewhere in the UK so when I came home on the Friday night and he produced an itinerary for our trip to the Danish capital I was utterly and delightfully surprised.

The weekend was themed around two of my favourite things, food and wandering aimlessly around a new city (and there were a lot of fancy Scandi homewear shops thrown in for good measure). It is hard to pick out any one moment as the 'best bit' but I will say that Tivoli Gardens is one of the most magical places I have ever been. We spent a joyful afternoon on old fairgrounds rides, drinking Glug and smiling at what seemed like a million sparkling fairy lights.

Honourable mentions also go out to Restaurant Brdr Price (the most beautiful room I have ever set foot in: see below) and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. 

3. My birthday lunch with my family

Daddy and Uncle Ronald took me to a restaurant  I have wanted go to for years for my 30th, the River Cafe in Hammersmith. Whilst the price tag is eye watering, it is a beautiful modern space and the pasta is out of this world. I mean really; melt in your mouth, buttery ravioli with a delicious butternut squash filling.

Daddy and Uncle R also bought me the best possible birthday present (yes, there were hints!). A years membership of my local hot yoga studio. It is hard to genuinely give 'a gift that just keeps giving' but this one really does.

In sum, I am a very, very lucky girl and a few months into my fourth decade I feel very grateful indeed.

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Image from @spindlephoto via Instagram

My January 2016 goals went well. I feel I got a huge amount out of the development centre at work and I met my target of completing three blog posts. January was also a month of booking things; Sam's birthday surprise is fully booked and our big April trip is confirmed: we are travelling to Hong Kong and Singapore and to say I am excited is a HUGE understatement. This month I have also booked flights to Lisbon for a 30th birthday trip with my bestie (something we have been talking about for years!) and to Mallorca for our 5th wedding anniversary. There is a lot to look forward to and I think I may be subtitling 2016 'the year of adventure'.

With all that flight booking it is a good thing that I have been doing the contentment challenge, which has been going very well, Having unsubscribed from all the spam I get trying to sell me things I haven't found myself to drawn in to the desire to consume and hope that when I finish the challenge in March future purchases will be more intentional.

So, onto February goals, which are as follows:

• attend at least one networking event at work;
• celebrate my bestie's 30th birthday as it deserves to be celebrated (which we already made a start on last weekend, with so much more to come)!!
• enjoy a weekend in Bath with my Dad;
• fully plan the menu and logistics for Sam's chess themed birthday dinner in March (this will be the largest seated dinner the Tombshouse has seen!)
• continue the contentment challenge.

So please follow my blog there, if that is something that floats your boat!

Many people moan that January is the worst month of the year. Perhaps because I am an eternal optimist, I do not see it that way. In my eyes January is a cosy, snuggly time to hunker down in your home and just soak in what you have. I think my gratitude list for the first couple of weeks of this month reflects that:

1. Time to be: the first few weekends of this year have been spent curled up on the sofa watching Making a Murderer and reading How to Win Friends and Influence People (excellent, btw). When we have ventured out it has been for hot yoga or to our favourite local haunts. Looking forward to my packed diary for February to April, I know I am going to look back on these hazy nothing and everything days with starry eyes.
2. Future plans: January is the month of booking things and as a Type-A planner I simply love this process! So far I have booked Sam's surprise birthday (all to be revealed in March), a weekend in Lisbon with my bestie in May and a short trip to Glasgow for a friend's 30th. As I type this blog post my logistics man is getting his google on, as regards our three holidays this year!!
3. Time with Daddy: we spent a lovely evening at Sartoria in Mayfair with my Father a couple of weeks ago. I have resolved to make far more of an effort to bridge the very short geographical distance between us this year, and already have train tickets to Bath booked for February. 
4. My new coat (below): Daddy bought me a camel coat from Nicole Farhi for Christmas. I have been lusting after it forever and now I own it, I never want to take it off. The best thing about the camel colour and the cocoon shape is that it is perfect for work and play but looks totally different in each scenario. And have I mentioned how soft it is?. So soft.

Last weekend Sam and I celebrated our ten year anniversary. Ten years ago, after a Christmas holiday spent obsessing over the gorgeous boy I had snuggled up to watching a Margaret Thatcher documentary at the end of Michaelmas term 2005 (yes, we were destined to be!) I returned to Oxford and within a day we admitted to one another we had already fallen in love.

My life changed that day, and although there have been the inevitable ups and downs that come with growing up with the other half your heart, I am so, so thankful to have found the person who completes me so early in my life and to have already shared so many milestones - including Finals, my Call to the Bar and his MA graduation, to name but a few - with him. 

As it is also our five year wedding anniversary this year, we decided to have a low key celebration and took a day trip to Camber Sands; a beautiful stretch of sandy beach in Kent. It being January in the UK, the British weather did as it does, but that did not deter us. We had a windswept but beautiful walk along a beach we shared with a few other humans and one very enthusiastic spaniel, followed by a delicious meal at the Gallivant (a restaurant we have been meaning to visit for years.  

Delicious fish, sand in my hair and Sam by my side. Happy 10 years of us indeed.

Christmas 2015 marks the second year we have hosted both our families (Sam's parents and my Dad and my Uncle)  at the Tombs house, and two years of spending Christmas as one family we can officially say we have fledgling traditions. I love this, as it feels like the beginning of many, many happy years where many, many more customs will become second nature.

For now, the traditions I cherish are these:

• our Christmas Eve supper of lasagne (Sam's favourite food) and doughnuts (to mark Chanukah as well as Christmas;
• stockings on Christmas morning with Daddy and Kerry and Joan. We each have our now now and they sit happily filled by the fire as we wake;
• a Christmas day walk to get everyone out of the house and ready for present opening and canapés. Both the Heath and the Parkland walk are perfect for this;
• always having Turkey and all the trimmings for a very late lunch/ early dinner (I am a traditionalist in this regard, and no other Christmas dinner feels right);
• a Christmas day movie all curled up on the sofa full and happy surrounded by opened gifts and cups of tea. 

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 I have very obviously neglected this blog in the latter half of 2015. The reason is, I hope, a good one. I began my new job as an Associate Barrister at a City law firm in June 2015 and the whole process was a big adjustment; from working in an office of 8 people I began working in an office over 400, with all the associated systems and working practices. I found that in committing fully to becoming embedded at work, I simply didn't have time to blog meaningfully, exercise and enjoy time with family and friends. I am happy to report however, that I have now been taken on as a permanent employee and feel genuinely settled at work; I truly love my challenging  job as well as the life it allows me to have outside it when I manage my time efficiently. And, having got used to it all, I now have enough time to blog about that life too!!

It seems only right that the first post of 2016 is about goals. As I have already reported on this blog ,goals are something I am passionate about; without a clearly defined goal it is impossible to fulfil one's potential and in my view life is about being the best you you can be. With that in mind on 31 December 2015 I sat down with my http://www.emilyley.com  Simplified Planner and road mapped my goals for 2016. My practice is to divide my goal setting into different areas of my life e.g. career, family, financial and set goals within these categories. As per last year I will be breaking my goals down into monthly 'do-able' chunks to maximise my ability to achieve them. 

I also have two words that I aim to focus on throughout the year, particularly when I am in a difficult situation. Last year those words were BALANCED and GRACIOUS. This year, the are GIVE and LOVE.

January 2016 goals

• Career: attend the mid-level Associate development centre at the end of the January and capitalise fully on the opportunity to learn;
• Family: book flights for Sam's birthday surprise;
• Financial: complete month 1 of my 3 month Contentment Challenge. To find out more about this read this post from the inspiring Nancy Ray: http://nancyrayphotography.com/i-am-content-the-challenge/
• Travel: book flights for our trip in April (Seoul and Japan are a definite contender!!)
• Blog: complete three blog posts, including one about my favourite new Christmas traditions having hosted our second Christmas in our home.

It has been a truly lovely last week at work, and the following things have made it so:

1. A weekend trip to Oxford - Oxford is the scene of some the happiest memories of my life, it is where I fell in love with Sam, where I met my best friends (aka 'the corridor') and where I started to really become the person I am today. It was so wonderful to visit last weekend and see Port Meadow, the river, the RadCam and of course Hughs in all their sunshiney glory, with some of my very favourite people by my side. It was the kind of joy filled day that will reflect it's happiness onto many long days in the office.

2. Some excellent food - it has official been a good food week. Highlights include Sichuan food at Barshu in Soho; breakfast with Lucy at Kopapa, boiled eggs and asparagus from my own kitchen and a delicious street food wrap from Moro in Exmouth Market after court. .

3.#poirottombs in Tatler - he is officially one of the UK's classiest cats! Nothing further need be said.

4. A flower delivery - I was sent the gorgeous flowers (pictured above) by some of my favourite clients at work as a thank-you. I have never received flowers at work before and it is definitely smile inducing. Such a kind gesture and they bringing summer into our house a treat!

5. My last day - this is still 'in progress' but thus far today I have been given gin and tonic, a perfect personalised leaving card and a beautifully baked summer sponge. It is certainly making me happy so far!! I am going to miss my colleagues a lot.