We entered 2025 just the two of us after our friends hit a deer on the way to watch fireworks from our balcony. Everyone was okay thankfully but a bit of a weird start to the year. I had stopped drinking alcohol after the US elections in November so A ended up drinking the whole bottle of Veuve on his own and we had so many leftover snacks, confetti shooters, etc. Wah-wah. Possibly an inauspicious start.
January was pretty uneventful - I was trying to book some fun activities so we went up to Byron Bay for a Mermaiding camp - okay this sounds ridiculously lame but I did this at Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida a few years ago and it was amazing. I had high hopes - it was meant to be a combination of yoga, breathing techniques, in water training at a super cute private grotto pool and a boat trip/freediving at a gorgeous open water location led by Hannah Fraser and photography by Brett Stanley. Hannah Mermaid is/was an amazing freediver and incredibly accomplished athlete/artist who has swum in some of the most iconic and beautiful locations in the world with some of the most amazing aquatic wildlife. So I was very excited.
It was not what I thought I was getting into. Most of the programming was not around actual freediving or even swimming and the focus was more on underwater modeling in a fetid yet over chlorinated AirBNB pool. Several of the participants could not even swim, and there was at least one participant who was panicking even in shallow water being photographed nude for some onlyfans type venture. (I have no problem at all with nudity or OF or SW but for me this is what you book a private session with a photog for rather than sign up for a skills based group camp.)
Anyway, it was mostly waiting around and being told how to pose more prettily underwater, which is not really my thing. Yes I understand not everyone wants to compete at a high level or swim for 20 or 45 hours like I have done but mermaiding is an art and requires at least basic SWIMMING.
The pool water was absolutely disgusting and not being maintained properly chemically. I could have fixed this shit when I was 13. There was also a pod of wasps that kept coming in and out of the grotto area which was the only area out of the sun - we were all very fortunate not to get stung.
The scheduled/advertised open water session the next day was cancelled due to “weather.” I did not see any weather and we were not offered any refund or back up date when they had supposedly chartered a boat for the second day. Super suspicious and poor business practices. Instead we were offered the “opportunity” to return to the rental house pool for a second day of videography instead of the first day of still photography. I should have pushed back and given them a piece of my mind but no thanks.
Even though I didn’t go back for the second day, I still got a nasty sinus infection and my hair turned GREEN from the pool chemicals’ being off balance. This is wild but after spending majority of my life between 7 and 20 years old with blonde hair in chlorinated pools and many hours around the world since, this was the first time the green hair thing happened to me. It looked ridiculous and not work appropriate but fortunately soaking my head in tomato juice reversed the green colour. Recommend!
On the bright side A came to pick me up and we had a nice dinner on the water afterwards and an incredible walk down the beach back to the vintage Airstream I had rented for the weekend, right on the water. Byron Bay is a bit random but the water there is really beautiful. We had a few sunrise swims and a sunset hike and it was all lovely. On Monday we worked from this hippie co-working space with sauna/cold plunge (not really) and conference rooms and flew home.
I don’t have much in my planner for February or March - but we went to an art gallery and for oysters on our 25th anniversary. It probably should have been something better and we should have done something for Valentines Day (I love it and am obsessed with a celebration of love) but I think I was just overwhelmed by the state of the world at the time. A and I talked about it and we both have a lot of memory gaps and things like this from the first time the current US administration was in power. Even from afar, it’s upsetting.
In April I see I got my BIAB nail gels removed but I think the technician effed up and left etchings into some of my actual nail. We also did cryotherapy which was nice - I missed it. Towards the end of the month Yas and Freyja were in town for a concert at Sydney Opera House so we met for a really nice dinner there before they saw TV Girl.
May was a fairly busy month, as my Australian life goes. We jogged the Hoka Half Marathon slowly which was a beautiful flat course and very scenic. I think my (Hoka) trainers were too big or my gait is off or something because I had a bruised toenail on my foot after. I’ve done 5 stand alone full marathons plus an full distance ironman triathlon and too many half marathons/70.3 tris to count and never had this issue.
The next day I had a work trip to Canberra which was nice because I was able to able to see my friends there. Australian Mexican food with Yas and Shari and then coffee in the morning with my old coworker. The next weekend I was supposed to go on a group freediving trip to Narooma to freedive with seals. I was excited but got overwhelmed at the idea of being in Australian sun and having to interact with strangers for an entire weekend, even with a private room with ensuite bathroom including clawfoot tub and had a lowkey panic attack and cancelled. I hope whoever got upgraded to our room was happy.
I had to go to Jakarta a few days later for work. This kind of finally felt like glorious real life again. I love the routine of work travel, meeting people, doing something important. At the same time it felt weird as this was just a contract job, the connections I was making weren’t real. Or were they? Anyway. Jakarta went extremely well and I had a smooth trip home back to my A. We walked through the Pyrmont Wine & Art festival which was totally lame and I crashed the rest of the weekend.
On Monday I had another work trip to Brisbane, which I was also kind of excited for. I had booked a design hotel with a really lovely rooftop pool designed by an olympic swimmer, and a bathtub. The room wasn’t ready in time and the staff seemed confused but eventually after an hour after check in time I was able to go in, put my stuff down, and head back out.
The venue for my main event was super cool too, an old bank on the banks of the river with really pretty lighting on the water. Everything went well, but when I got home hoping to have a bath there was no stopper to fill the tub? I called down to reception to see if this had been lost and if I could get another stopper but they told me filling the bath was a health and safety issue and they could no longer give out stoppers. This completely did my head in and I was kind of already at the end of my rope so I just stuffed the drain with plastic wrap and a bathtowel, filled the tub and fell asleep in the bathtub. I did not drown or overflow the tub but had a subpar bath and left an overly wet bath towel behind.
In June I was excited for the Sydney Film Festival. We had tickets for the opening night and I got a haircut and blowout at lunchtime and had a cute outfit. Showed up at the super cute, historic theatre and then the movie started literally 2 hours and 13 minutes after the scheduled start time. It was crazy. I’ve gone to a lot of international film festivals and while there are some that start straight on time, some that start a consistent 10-30 minutes later I have never been to one that was over an hour late let alone over 2+ hours after the start time. Then I think at least partially because of how late it started, people were constantly getting up and down to piss. What a palaver. The movie was also really bad, and also apparently plagiarized so we left for the after party at the scheduled start time even though the movie was not over.
The after party was at Sydney Town Hall which was really beautiful. A stunning historic venue, good food, and we had a nice time for a bit. But even after most people came in, the vibe was sub-par, so we left after ascertaining we would not miss anything if we left. We went to a couple of other events for the Sydney Film Festival but in short ones run by external providers were professional while the in house ones were not.
What else in June? I dyed my hair purple on a whim. Regretted immediately as was not suitable for corporate work. Fortunately an internet researched combination of baking soda, developer, and purple shampoo took it out. We went to Vivid, a light festival which ends promptly at 22:00. We went to a barbeque festival street fair thing.
In July we went to a great event at Prefecture 48 sponsored by Haku Vodka. I think this was my best meal of 2025. Beautiful cocktails - lush and NOT FRIED seafood in Sydney which is sadly a rarity. Overall a gorgeous night. I think this was my first night of drinking since November? It wasn’t like a bender but I did at least taste each of the cocktail courses which was a decent amount of alc I think. We also worked out a lot and went to a Barry’s Bootcamp class with my favourite instructor on a Friday night which was interesting - it was a promotional event in support of a new venture of one of the Real Housewives of Sydney so came with some drinks and snacks and merch. I was bummed to miss the drinks and snacks afterwards to head back home to catch a call with our London office.
This is quite long and approximately half the year so will stop here for brevity’s sake.
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