Ten happy things – July 2022

Each month I like to look back and write about ten things that made me happy and brought me joy. They can be really small or big, such as a holiday. This month we went on holiday twice so there was lots to be happy about! Here’s my ‘ten happy things’ for July.

Celebrated Natalie’s baby shower & birthday

My lovely friend Natalie had a special birthday a few months ago and is expecting baby number two so we combined the occasions with one big celebration! A bunch of her friends gathered for a fabulous lunch at The King’s Head near Sevenoaks and they kindly let us have one of their lovely huts for free, which I helped to decorate. The weather that day was gorgeous and we had such a joyous time celebrating Natalie. Also, her sister was visiting from Australia and was able to join us which made it extra special.

Went for a run after 2 months

I finally went for a run, after being ill, going on holiday and generally just being busy. I stupidly chose one of the hottest days, during the heatwave, however I was at the gym so there was air-con. I only managed to run 2km, but I was so proud of myself for doing it after so long! Strava informed me it had been almost 2 months since my last run… I will try not to leave it so long this time!

Fun team away day

The charity that I’ve been contracting at since December, organised an away day for our directorate at Bounce in Farringdon. We spent the day getting to know the different teams better and hearing from other teams about what they do and the impact our charity makes. It was honestly really inspiring. At the end of the day, we got to play ping pong for a couple of hours. Not me though – I’m absolutely rubbish at it!

I was on a podcast

I recorded a podcast with Charity Digital as part of their ‘how did you get there…’ series. I chatted with the lovely host, Sacha, about how I got into charity comms and my career so far. You can listen to the episode here!

Discovered Lampedusa

My husband had been talking about Lampedusa for ages and we finally booked a holiday there. It’s an island off Sicily, which is around 113km from Africa.

Whilst I’ve seen prettier Italian islands and towns, Lampedusa has the best beaches I’ve ever seen! We had an absolutely wonderful time and I’m sure we’ll be back.

Swam in the most beautiful beach ever

I’ve swum in some incredible beaches around the world but Lampedusa has to have the BEST beaches! The colours of the water is just incredible… My favourite one on the island was definitely Isola dei conigli – rabbit island or rabbit beach. You have to walk about 1km to reach it but it was totally worth it. Do you agree?

Experienced the most incredible sunsets

I thought Cefalù had amazing sunsets but boy, they had nothing on Lampedusa! Every night we were treated to an incredible sunset, whilst having aperitivio in the cutest of settings. It was honestly magical.

Visited a temple

After Lampedusa we spent three nights in Castellammare del Golfo, which we’ve been to before. This time though we visited a few places in the surrounding towns that we’d not been to. One of the them was the magnificent Temple of Segesta, which is a Greek-Sicilian temple that was built between 420 and 430. It was absolutely amazing to see!

Had amazing feedback

I ran a ‘Writing with purpose’ session for Media Trust as part of their Digital Summer School. It’s a series of training over three weeks and mine was the last session. I had really good feedback and a couple of people even said it was their favourite one! That made me really happy and super proud.

Lunch at the new Lina Stores

We love Lina Stores so we were really happy when they opened one nearer to us – in Marylebone. We went for lunch one Saturday and had a great meal – especially as fried artichokes were on the menu! It is a lovely restaurant and the food and service was great, but I think the Lina Stores in Coal Drops Yard is still my favourite.

So that’s what made me happy and brought me joy! How did your July go? Let me know what made you happy in the comments.