100 things I loved in 2025
(in no particular order)
- Starting a pom pom and fairy light mohican which will be finished in Jan 2026!
- Celebrating my business turning 5
- Working with all the amazing people who are my clients through Coaching with Sarah. I really do love this, always.
- Being invited to No 11 Downing Street (excellent canapes, fizz medium) and the House of Lords (weird canapes, delicious fizz).
- Watching my 14yo perform one of his own songs at a professional gig
- Taking on big projects which challenged myself in new ways, especially creating 30+ online courses in a matter of months for Articulate Cultural Trust
- Celebrity Traitors
- No… not just celebrity… ALL traitors. Linda forever.
- Maybe, most importantly, watching the national treasure that is Claudia Winkleman
- Supporting the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s fair access team with their strategy
- Creating a beadwork Mardi Gras haberdashery that won the Founder’s Award at the Great British Bead Show
- The Wes Anderson retrospective at The Design Museum in London with the 17yo
- Discovering how much I love Adam Buxton’s podcast
- Delving into a range of books with my book club including Intermezzo, Butter, Katabasis and Special Topics in Calamity Physics
- Going to see Yungblud’s Idols tour with my 14yo in Zurich
- Supporting the Scottish contemporary art network, SCAN, facilitating a board & team meeting
- Celebrating my Baldiversary with some lovely pals (a party to stare adversity in the face and celebrate the anniversary of the day I shaved the remaining hair off).
- Getting my logo redesigned with Laura at Paper Arcade
- Getting an embosser for said logo. The best thing ever!
- Seeing the Importance of Being Earnest at NT with the 17yo in January
- Working with a menopause and health coach - made lots of positive changes and some surprising discoveries
- Continuing to support Albatross Arts CIC as a director
- Trying and failing to find a literary agent with my book proposal (new proposal currently in development!)
- Having my Weekly Planner featured in the print and web versions of Ideal Home Magazine
- The annual Easter Egg hunt at my mum’s which, in 2025, got us all tied up in vast amounts of string
- Working with the fabulous Sorcha at Killer Whale Coaching, creating a kick ass Clifton Strengths online course for her
- That dinner party scene in The Roses - a masterpiece IMO
- Continuing with 2-3 yoga classes and the occasional pilates class week in, week out throughout the year. Yass!
- Celebrating my mum’s 80th at the Ritz
- Working with a new-ish beader as their mentor for the annual challenge
- Getting my boiler fixed and it not costing the earth!
- Printing some gorgeous Cartographer stickers for returning participants
- Delivering some warm and engaged webinars: Space is Where the Magic Happens
- Working with a new VA who is fab!
- Swimming in the Charles Jencks artwork at Jupiter Artland
- Finding a milkshake vending machine at 11pm in a sleepy little market town in Devon
- Catching up with extended family after far too long in that Devon town!
- Enjoying a bumper January with 9 new clients and lots of people signing up to the Cartographer’s Compass
- The inaugural sailing of the Compass - every workshop was a delight and felt so perfectly aligned
- Being a guest on Sarah Stewart’s podcast
- Getting the Compass ready to sail again for 2026
- Finally getting round to watching Slow Horses. So good.
- Running a workshop on imperfection for Creative Strathaven
- Visiting my Dad’s heart on the National Covid Memorial wall a couple of times. Your graffiti is still going strong, Dad!
- Discovering a deep love for overnight oats and goji berries. Who knew?!
- Stumbling over Adolescence on Netflix before it reached the papers and watching the first episode with my jaw hanging open before dashing upstairs to tell my two teen sons they had to watch it.
- Creating some fun and games based facilitation, making consultation more creative and engaging for Articulation’s Summer Gathering
- My name being mentioned on The Rest is Entertainment! Totally, hands down, my favourite podcast.
- Making zig zag beadwork earrings that I wear at least once a week
- Reconnecting with CHARTS to provide some coaching support
- Playing at Bunbury Banter’s games day, Untested. We created a game about consensus and travel agents!
- Visiting lots of galleries including a couple of exhibition openings for some fabulous clients
- A lunchtime tour of the GSA archives - a cheeky midday artists date
- Going away with 2 other families for the 5th time and having a blast
- Losing one eyebrow - the comedy of it is worth putting on this list
- Discovering I reject tattoo ink with the microblading for said eyebrow refusing to stick
- Regrowing half that eyebrow in the autumn… half! That is also comedy gold. I currently have 1.5 eyebrows.
- All of my eyelashes regrowing - this really is a full on, non-ironic thing to celebrate!
- The Citz reopening and feeling all warm and fuzzy getting a tour around the place
- Chilling in the Oxford botanic gardens on the hottest day of the year
- Working on strategy with the wonderful Dirliebane theatre and their phenomenal two Artistic Directors
- Reconnecting with Creative Glasgow and going to some fab events
- Taking a boat trip down the Thames on a sunny Saturday, with my family whilst the red arrows flew over followed by a lovely lunch in a very old pub in Greenwich
- Reading Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman - the book hasn’t left the bedside pile as it is so easy to dip in and reread a bit of is undoubtable wisdom
- Writing my first beading pattern in yonks. A stash busting Christmas tree.
- Diving into the world of Lemonading and writing about it
- My blog on glimmers still getting loads of hits
- Getting out in the morning for a stomp along the glen
- Attending my first Alopecia UK’s big weekend and running a self-care mini zine drop in
- Being at a party where there were more bald women than ones with hair!
- Hosting my first Meet Mingle and Make for the Beadworkers Guild, beading with people from all over the world
- Discovering (admittedly quite late) The Greatest Night in Pop documentary. The bit where Stevie Wonder helps a hopelessly lost Bob Dylan by doing an impression of him is amazing.
- Feeling financially stable for the first time in ages
- Daily puzzles - NY Times, LinkedIn, the i newspaper. Killer Sudoku (with pencil on paper) still my favourite
- Realising that pistachio pavlova is gluten free (after the discovery of my gluten intolerance)
- Discovering this GF seeded loaf - loads of fibre, protein and very little carbs.
- Also baking lots of Ricciarelli. Also GF!
- Whilst on the GF roll (pun intended), discovering that Big Bear Bakery’s sour dough is still lovely and doesn’t upset me
- M&S’s individual GF panettone
- I totally nailed GF sweet short crust too. My mince pies this year were a thing of beauty.
- Making it along to a few Creative Morning events (one of my fave networking things ever)
- GF puff pastry, however, not so good, so the Christmas beef wellington had the normal stuff (which I just took off… and that was grand… in fact it was glorious).
- Being one of Small Business Saturday’s 100 best small businesses for 2025
- Reading the fabulous Truth Like Water by Carys Shannon and feeling all smug about getting mentioned in the acknowledgements (in a coaching session, I encouraged Carys to hit send on the scary email sending this marvellous book to Parthenon who ended up publishing it in September!)
- Making glittery resin letters… actually for an idea that got shelved, but the making was loads of fun, especially with the 14yo’s help
- Continuing to attend, support and organise workshops for Beadwildered, my local beading group
- Celebrating with my 17yo for not only becoming the national schools Public Speaking champion but also getting into the Scottish debate team and will be off to Kenya to compete in the world championship in the summer
- Watching Chunky Jewellery again - such a funny, powerful and entertaining show. Loved it.
- Playing far too much Two Dots on my phone
- The return of Feathers McGraw
- Being in the Slough Observer for the first time in 30 years!
- Delivering some coaching for Clore
- An instagram and a linkedin live, talking all things stationery with Vaishali Shah
- Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent - loved it
- Delivering a workshop on creative remote facilitation for students on the Creative Therapies course at the City of Bristol college
- Getting out of my comfort zone with the boys at Alton Towers
- Lots of gorgeous dinners out with pals: Lobo, Ox and Finch and Margo were my top ones (all Glasgow)
- Not getting the flu my 14yo had just before Christmas
- Facilitating the workshops for the Cartographer’s Compass - I know I’ve mentioned it before in this list, but these small but perfectly formed gatherings really were such a delight and a highlight for my business this year
- Not being afraid to try and fail at things, or ditch ideas when they’re not working, or sometimes park them for later
