Ey up! I know I haven’t been writing (I know I know I KNOW), I decided to take a break from my fresh, hip brand of oversharing (aka blogging) and just live for a bit. So you’ve missed out on detailed accounts of drinks in skyscrapers, meeting childhood idols and getting relationship advice from homeless men in the rain. But how could I ever ever ever let 2015 slip by without a Year In Review post!? I simply couldn’t.
So, without further ado, here was 2015, season by season.
WINTER
Back in Aberdeen after a whirlwind year in Canada (which you can read all about here, if you’re curious), things were a little… meh. Aberdeen in all it’s grizzly granite glory can’t really hold up against the sun and snow of Toronto. Things were pretty grim for a while, I signed up for a temp job which I never actually started, got sad a lot and went to Edinburgh quite a few times to see pals. I went on a Tinder date with a guy from New York who accidentally winded me with an elbow to the ribs. For a few weeks I went to cognitive behaviour therapy which calmed my anxiety significantly. I listened to Westlife’s ‘If I Let You Go’ 14 times in the space of one day. Down in London, my friend Harriet and I did Valentines together, with dancing in Latin bars, bike rides round Hyde Park, cinema trips and baking birthday cakes… for no-ones birthday. I started working in the Wee Cafe, met some lovely friends and started serving coffee again.
SPRING
Things started to look less grimy and grim, I started preparing to apply for another Canadian working visa so I could return in May. In the meantime I wrote a song I was really proud of, and started to daydream about one of the regular customers in the cafe. I say daydream, it was more of an all-encompassing obsession which resulted in me asking him out, then going on a date with him AND getting a kiss which definitely ranked in my Top Three Kisses of 2015 and probably Top Five Kisses of All Time… probably. Most of my enjoyment came from the fact that I had asked a man out (a man who owns a car and an apartment and probably other attractive adult manly things like a toaster and a credit card and a television license) and the man had said yes. And then after that he just wanted to be friends, but, still… I won, I reckon.
I RAMBLE WAY TOO MUCH ABOUT SKINNY CARAMEL LATTE MAN anyway another big part of Spring was Mum streaming Don’t Tell The Bride which somehow prevented me connecting to the Canadian Visa Website in enough time to secure another year in Toronto. I changed direction, and turned to thinking about education again, applying to London and Bath for songwriting courses.
SUMMER
Hoooo-Wee! What a summer! I got on a plane and went back to Toronto for a couple of months to frolic in the summa sunshine. I sat under cherry blossoms with old friends, painted canvasses on rooftops, gigged in familiar venues, danced on beaches, filmed thunderstorms and ate a lot of Honey Nut Cheerios. I went to see Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Lana Del Rey, Grimes and Cloud Nothings with some of my favourite people, and got to lounge around on Ontario grass at Field Trip Festival and Bestival, too. I dated a guy on Tinder for a week just to meet his adorable Alsatian dog, I went to a Prince dance party, and played one my favourite gigs of the year in The Paddock Tavern to a crowded room full of my friends. Canadian summer was rad.
I came home via London, auditioning for the London Centre for Contemporary Music, then spent the rest of the summer working in the cafe, keen for September to roll on.
AUTUMN
I packed a bag and moved to London. I always knew that at one point I’d be living in London, but I never imagined I’d feel so at home in the Big Smoke. I moved into an apartment in Bermondsey with an criminology student, a vocalist and a saxophonist. On my second day in London I did something some friends now refer to as “An Olivia” and fell down the last three stairs of a double decker bus and sprained my ankle horribly. I started school at LCCM and made a ton of new friends, including my local baristas (although I had to seriously reign in my coffee spending after reviewing my bank statement from October). I went to blues gigs, record fairs, classical concerts, winter markets. I rode carousels, accidentally murdered a tropical butterfly with a handbag, and chased after people in the pouring rain. I met one of my biggest music heroes, Elvis Costello, and we talked about hats and Burt Bacharach. I started to realise that I was a better singer than I took myself for, that I was a lot shyer than I needed to be, and that I could go out three nights in a row every week and survive.
MUSIC
2015 marks the year that I became moderately obsessed with a K-Pop band called EXO. It was very ugly and wonderful at the same time. K-Pop production is something worth studying — every tiny detail is geared towards making teenage girls lose their minds. It is potent stuff and I fell under the spell very very quickly.
I also listened to a lot of Bjork, Grimes, Sam Smith, Steely Dan and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. My most played song of the year was the soundtrack to my Toronto summer, UMO’s Multi-Love, which features one of my most favourite lyrics ever: checked into my heart and trashed it like a hotel room.
In INKA news, I wrote a whole bunch of songs, but these two were my most impressive:
2016
It’s 8pm on New Years’ Eve and I’m sitting on the sofa with my sister, drinking champagne and listening to Justin Bieber, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I’m really excited for what this year coming is going to bring, I just have such a good feeling about it, and although the last two years have been interesting and difficult and very very Canadian-centric, I’m feeling a lot happier in general nowadays.
My intention for 2016 is to do more collaborative work, play more gigs and create more content, be it songs, music videos, essays or images. I do have a project in the works for young female creatives called The Shyless which I plan to launch in the new year, you can click here to read all about it.
I would just like to thank everyone I’ve spent time with, and everyone I’ve met for the first time in 2015, for your kindness, your helpfulness, your laughter, your wickedness and your warmth. I am so lucky to have you. Thanks for telling me when to take myself seriously, and joining in when I sure as hell didn’t want to be taken seriously. Here’s to the next chapter.
