Blog

Here we go Again

by irelandandelsewhere, posted in blog, ireland, staycation, travel

Summer is finally on its way, the weathers not been too bad and things are starting to open up as the vaccine roll-out continues! In a couple of weeks restrictions will have lifted allowing us to dine inside and stay in hotels – this naturally meant we had to book somewhere to stay. We have stayed a number of great places in Ireland during 2020 but our favourite has been the Lough Erne Resort and we are staying again in June.

We are still waiting to hear and slightly unsure about international travel, it is likely we will have similar guidance to that of England and might get to take a short break away in Portugal – somewhere Iain has never been. We have also been giving a lot of thought to what we want to do and see over the next few years, there’s a few bucket list destinations such as Bora Bora that we are beginning to save towards and will hopefully experience in the future.

For now its great to have something to look forward to, this last lockdown took its toll as we were starting to feel like it was wake up, work, eat and sleep for a few months. For now we are looking forward to spending more time with family and friends, getting out and seeing the world.

Until then, stay safe and keep planning the next adventure!
Brianna and Iain

Advertisement

2021 – Looking Ahead & Setting Goals

by irelandandelsewhere, posted in Uncategorized

With a new year comes the chance to look towards the next 12 months, and think about how you want the year to look. Like many of you, we like to think of the new year as a way to start fresh – a chance to think of goals, and set out to achieve them.

Our new home:

We’re planning to start putting our own stamp on our new house over the coming years, and this year our biggest focuses are to:

Completely renovate the bathroom

Renovate the kitchen to enhance the current space (until we can do a larger renovation in a few years’ time)

Tidy up the garden so that we can hopefully enjoy spending time in it once the summer months come around.

Overall for our house the goal this year is to start to make it feel like it really is ours. We’re extremely excited to start turning it into our forever home.

Health and fitness:

This is a big one for us this year, as it’s something we’ve let slide recently. We’re keen to start focusing more on our health, so our main goals are:

To drink more water, and not just when we’re thirsty.

To cut back on alcohol – we got really into making cocktails during lockdown, but we’d like to limit how many we’re making.

To go to bed at a more reasonable time – we’re both night owls, so staying up past 12 is a common occurrence – not the best thing when the alarm goes off the next morning!

We’d love to start incorporating more of a plant based diet into our lifestyle – perhaps a few times a week.

Finding an exercise routine, we actually enjoy – we’d love to eventually convert our garage into a small gym. But for now the plan is to just start moving!

Hobbies:

The combination of the winter months and lockdown have led to us spending more time than ever binge watching TV. We have a number of hobbies we’d love to pursue:

Reading more books – we were both avid readers growing up, but recently that’s slipped.

Getting more into our blog and social media sites – starting up the page last year was a real mood lifter for us both, and a way to remember our love of travel during lockdown.

Trying out new recipes, both sweet and savoury, as way to get out of a food rut.

If COVID restrictions allow for it – we’d love to explore more of Ireland.

2 books Brianna read last year

It’s a lot of goals to set out for ourselves, and we may fall short on some – but we think setting it out in a list helps hold us accountable. Perhaps we’ll do a 6-month review in June!

Do you have any goals for the new year? If so what are they?

Stay safe!

Brianna and Iain.

Happy New Year!

by irelandandelsewhere, posted in Uncategorized

Hello everyone, it has been a bit quiet around here from us, like everyone 2020 has been a bit of a crazy year!

The last few months have seen us get our first house together which has taken up so much of our time in addition to that Northern Ireland has been in and out of Lockdown – currently we are in a 6 week one which really curbs what we can do!

Our new pup

We are hoping there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccine being rolled out here. This will hopefully allow us to get out and about and start sharing new content with you all.

Happy New Year to you all and we can’t wait to read your blogs and see what we have missed over the past couple of months.

Brianna and Iain