Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a lovely start to 2019.
This past week I’ve been doing quite a lot of reflecting on 2018, which was a crazy whirlwind year with plenty of highs and lows. I had a stressful end to the year but reviewing 2018 month by month there were plenty of things that I can look back on which made it an amazing year. So to keep the memories I thought I’d do a quick round up of my year in a nutshell!
JANUARY
My January highlight by far was visiting Miami with Wow Air and Visit Miami UK. Miami was absolutely everything I had imagined. It was the perfect combination between big city life, beach, arts and creativity. I loved Miami so much that I ended up staying there for 10 days longer. Whilst I was in Miami, I also launched Catch52 Media which I would spend the whole year working on. Catch52 Media was my photography and social media services that I provided to other brands, separately from my blog.
Read my guides on What to do in Miami, Where to eat in Miami and Where to stay in Miami.
FEBRUARY
I landed my very first client for Catch52 Media, Nordic Bakery. It was a great pleasure working with a Nordic company close to my Swedish roots.
MARCH
Hawker Chan, the famous Singaporean chef offering the cheapest Michelin star meal in the world, came to London, I vlogged about it with my friend Stephen who I met whilst backpacking in Myanmar last year. It brought back my Asia travel memories!
APRIL
I traveled to Bristol to shoot a segment for BBC The One Show, discussing the impact that Social Media has on the restaurant industry and why chain restaurants are shutting down. This was my first ever TV appearance and I was interviewed by Matt Allwright. Here is a little screenshot!
MAY
I got to watch a Real Madrid football game in Madrid with Mahou beer. I also attended a Game Of Thrones press trips with the tourism board of Northern Ireland where we scouted out the top shooting locations used for the show. We got to dress up too of course.
JUNE
My June highlights were my birthday, midsummer and the world cup! I had so much fun supporting my teams Iran and Sweden. For those of you who didn’t know, I’m a Swedish born Iranian. I did also support England don’t worry!
JULY
In July I got to attend the 2018 Grand Prix Ball with my lovely sister. It was probably one of the coolest events I’ve ever attended, so much effort had gone into the ball and the turnout was incredible. I also filmed a lighthearted Instagram Vs Reality parody video with my best friend at St Aymes Cafe in London.
AUGUST
I got nominated for the 2018 Flight Centre Awards and won the overall Best Travel Blog category. Thank you to everyone who voted for me. It truly means more than you know. I’ll be going to Australia this February as a result thanks to you and I can’t wait to share the experience.
In August I also had dinner prepared personally by Michel Roux to celebrate the fourth episode of the Balvenie Craftsmen’s Dinner series and I met Jamie Oliver and Genaro at their new book launch. Thank you Adwaiz for having me at both events.
SEPTEMBER
I snuck away on another Vipasanna course in Herefordshire for 10 days and told nobody 😁. Vipassana is the 10 day silent meditation course. Later that month I visited Paris with Sofitel and Perrier Jouet for a weekend to celebrate Sofitel Wine Days.
OCTOBER
October was by far the busiest travel month. I took a trip to the Amalfi Coast with Huawei Mobile to discover the P20 Pro and got to spend it with my good friend Joanna from Hashtag Life. I can safely say that I’ve converted to using Huawei after seeing the image quality. It was a lovely trip.
I visited Norcia Italy with Plymouth Gin to handpick some juniper berries from the Umbrian Valleys for an exciting new project launching this year.
Lastly I flew down to Mallorca with my best friend to cover the Hyatt Good Taste Series, which is almost like their internal master chef competition. We had a lot of fun doing photography and video coverage of the competition. The Park Hyatt Mallorca property itself is truly stunning as well.
NOVEMBER TO MID DECEMBER
In November there was no highlight apart from pure hustle and stress. I had been working extremely hard in the background last year trying to build up my business. In August I finally registered my company, a creative agency. I was so excited to do a rebranding and relaunch my website. It is no longer be Catch52 media (stay tuned for more on the next blog post).
Long story short things got majorly delayed. With such an importance on visuals, I decided to invest in a website designed from scratch exactly how I wanted it, with seo, branding, logo, the whole works. I hired someone who I knew, that unfortunately decided to delay my launch by months, not doing any work whatsoever all whilst refusing to refund me my money. I had to resort to legal action in the end which is currently still pending.
But I think timing is everything, maybe September wasn’t my time and I wasn’t meant to rush into anything. I’ve learned some valuable lessons to prepare me for next year and next step in my career. I’m excited to finally be launching my Creative Agency and there will be a lot of other exciting projects coming up so stay tuned.
I wish you all an amazing new year to come. Thank you for all your support and positivity this year as always. Lots of love
