Do you ever leave things until the last minute? I have always been like that with self-initiated projects. I'm good at planning and organisation but putting things into action seems very dependant on my mental state. Sometimes I can force myself into the 'doing' phase but other times I can procrastinate until the cows come home.

I did that to such an extent last year that I almost didn't blog at all. I had an enormous back-catalogue of photographs from various trips, some edited, some not. The result was a mad scramble of blog post writing in December last year to get 'up-to-date' ready for the new year. Whilst this seemed like a good idea at the time, it completely exhausted me before I got to my end of year review. So here it is, a couple of months late but done nevertheless. I wanted to get 2019 squared away before I move onto any of this year's content and I definitely don't want a repeat of last year. These posts act as a visual gratitude journal for me, I like to flick through them from time to time, reminding myself of all the places I have been lucky enough to experience and the people I've made those memories with.

We start with a post-new year's party walk to Sgwd yr Eira in the heart of the Brecon Beacons. Alongside a small bunch of camera-wielding ‘do-ers’ who also wanted to start a brand new year on the right foot. Our housemates also moved into a place of their own so we decided to put a little time/effort/money into our rented home style. Fortunately our landlady was pretty relaxed so the fact I wanted to paint a wall or two black, didn’t seem to be a problem. I started a new Instagram account to run alongside @superfex where I could separate out home interior decor, DIY and plant-based content under my name @clairelatchem.

Snow hit Bristol in February but didn't stay very long. We went for a local walk around Abbots Pool, where it had already started to melt away, exposing the lush green below. Circus Journal issued their Spring magazine, in which I was lucky enough to have my work published for This Way Maps. Lastly, my partner, Dan, turned thirty and we threw him a big party with all our friends and family at one of our favourite venues in Bristol, ‘The Forge’ at Colston Yard.

By March, Dan was often travelling abroad for work so I decided to take a solo trip to Durdle Door on a blustery Saturday morning. This was an intention I had set myself for the year so I'm glad I got a couple of them under my belt in 2019. I popped a good podcast on and wandered the coastal path, snapping away until the weather forced me to retreat back to my car.

I turned thirty-one the weekend following. Then there was the dreaded first anniversary of my Dad's passing but spending it with family definitely made it easier. We walked to a bench located in the fields behind my parent’s house, a field in which we used to go sledging with my dad when it snowed and a bench that now overlooks my Dad’s favourite cider orchard. It’s the perfect annual tradition that we hope to continue in the years to come.

In April we went for another local walk, this time around Stoke Park and it occurred to me that you don't need to go somewhere 'epic' all the time to take photographs that you are proud of. This was a mindset I found especially hard to break out of post-Iceland trip, as you can probably imagine. It was also the month I started applying for a new job.

I'm going to intersect this blog post to tell you about my job application story.

I stumbled upon this one listing that sounded perfect. It was for an independent homewares company who loved dogs and was based much closer to home then the two-hour (each way) commute I doing at the time to Poole. I was just starting to take a real interest in home interiors and the work looked super creative so I just knew I had to go for it. The only problem was I had no portfolio at the time and a very outdated CV.

I plugged away at making a tailored portfolio for the position (alongside my day job) for hours, which landed me an interview the same week and I was set to do a creative task over that weekend. It all happened very fast and I had an impossibly busy week coming up so there was no time to waste. I had planned it all down to the last minute. I had enough time to get it all done as long as everything went to plan.

So there I was, sat downstairs in my parent's house, twenty-five(ish) miles from home and a message pops up on my mac... 'battery at 9%'. I went to plug it in only to find it was already plugged in, I went to switch it on, it was already switched on. I tried all the other plugs in the house... nothing. It's 9pm, nobody has a spare anywhere near me, the shops are shut, Dan is halfway across the planet and I'm leaving first thing to drop my car off for its MOT before heading to Centre Parcs for a couple of days.

My only option was to drive home to pick up my spare, drive back and then work on the task until it was finished. It was now 3am, the house was quiet, dark but I had finally submitted it. It was a relief to get it in on deadline, for the whole process not to be in vein but I was also exhausted and on my way to look after two very small, very energetic kids who had no idea I was running on four hours sleep.

I guess the moral of the story is, work hard at job applications you really want because it might just pay off!

In May, I handed in my notice to a place I had worked for the past seven years and then myself and Dan took a trip down to Cornwall to celebrate our sixth anniversary. We wandered around The Lost Gardens of Heligan, a place I would love to return to one day and visited Bedruthan Steps, a place that's been on my coastal bucket list for many years now.

June saw the beginning of my new work-life in Bath, a place strangely familiar (as I used to visit a lot in my teenage years) but I had only visited once, for an evening spa session, in the last decade. We discovered a botanical garden in the south of Wales that we hadn’t been to before and happened to visit on the day that a full orchestra was playing in its huge glass dome, warming up for their evening show. It was an incredibly fortunate series of events, totally unplanned and unexpected but it made our time walking around the garden truly unforgettable.

We went on some more local walks and also headed back to the Brecon Beacons with some friends.

I went on my first solo surf trip in July, down to my favourite spot on the Cornish coast. I won't go into it too much as there's a whole blog post about it but I did take some of my favourite photos from the year on this trip.

August and September were big travel months for me. We spent a long weekend glamping and surfing at Ekopod in Cornwall, visiting St Nectan's Glen, Boscastle and Polzeath. We even got caught up in Tintagel’s annual carnival.

On one of the hottest days of the year, I met up with Trix, during her time in the UK and wandered the unbearably humid glasshouses of Kew Gardens in London. We could barely stand the upper levels, sweat beads constantly forming on our faces, clothes clinging to us everywhere and our camera lenses overcome with fog every ten seconds.

Dan and I took a trip up to Filey to visit his mum and explored more of the dramatic Yorkshire coast.

I arranged a long weekend in Dorset with my family. We camped in a bell tent on a beautiful little farm surrounded by woodland lakes, toured the ever changing habitats of Brownsea Island and basked in the sun at Man O'War Bay.

I watched Harry Potter in a theatre with my best pals, accompanied by a live orchestra.

Then to top off two perfect months, we went on a four day vacation to Barcelona where the accommodation, location and weather were just sublime. I only wish we could have stayed here longer.

In October myself and mum joined a local walking group for a day trip around the Stourhead area. She got stung by a bee, which was unfortunate, but the walk itself was lovely.

We went on our annual trip to Farrington's Farm to pick out our pumpkins. We spent the afternoon carving them with some friends (some of which had never carved a pumpkin before) whilst watching Hocus Pocus. Dan actually made a little video of the day, which always feels special to watch. October is also when work starts gearing up towards Christmas so it's pretty busy.

In November we went to a friend's wedding in a beautiful mansion where Dan wore the loudest shirt ever created. Then things start to get pretty quiet as we began to look for our first house together.

We decorated our rental house ready for Christmas, knowing it might well be our last there after five spectacular years. Up to this point, I had never had a real Christmas tree. Dan persuaded me to go for it this year but sourcing the right one was a high priority. After a little research, I found that Westonbirt National Arboretum sold sustainable grown trees, forestry certified, right here in Britain. The profits made from the trees also go back into maintaining the forests for local wildlife so it was a no brainer. The staff were lovely and told us stories of how Prince Charles’ staff would go there to pick out his tree for him and agonise over making that decision. We picked our tree, drove it back on my roof-rack, stood it in our bay window and decorated it that same evening.

I think we viewed six different houses in the same area we were renting at the time. One of which, is the house I'm sitting in right now, as I write this blog. The seller had been renting the house (the tenants had already moved out) and so they wanted a quick sale. We were first time buyers with a decent deposit and a monthly rolling rental contract.

It was a whirlwind three months from that point whilst we did all the paperwork, celebrated Christmas and generally worked our asses off to get everything over the line. It was a big life goal that we quietly worked on in the background until we exchanged and we got the keys on January 27th 2019.

FAVOURITES FROM 2019

Some of the below might have been released before 2019 I have discovered/enjoyed them this past year.

Books: A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge & Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling (I got the boxset last Christmas but I’ve just started to read them).

Music: Peripheral Vision by Turnover, Welcome to the Neighbourhood by Boston Manor, Nine by Blink-182, Amon by BMTH, anything by Simple Creatures or Harrison Storm.

Movies: Joker, Klaus, Star Wars - The Rise Of Skywalker, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

TV Series: Chernobyl (HBO), Mindhunter - Series 2 (Netflix), The Crown - Series 3 (Netflix) & His Dark Materials (BBC). We’ve also recently discovered Modern Family (Amazon Prime) and are absolutely loving it!

Places Visited: Montserrat Mountain (Spain), Brownsea Island and Bedruthan Steps.