A Brummie Home and Abroad Year in Review: 2024

It’s time for my annual look back at the year gone by, at home and abroad! I’m not gonna lie, these yearly round ups are more for my benefit and are quite self-indulgent. I can’t imagine anyone googling “how did A Brummie Home and Abroad” spend 2024 😂 But I’ve been doing them for a while now, so thanks for sticking with me! Welcome to my Year in Review, 2024.

A Brummie Abroad in 2024

The first thing that struck me when I considered how we’d spent our time abroad in 2024 was, well, how very unrelaxing it all was. Apart from a handful of sea days on our Med cruise, we’ve spent NO time just relaxing and soaking up the sunshine. We’ve jumped from one city break to the next, whether they be standalone breaks, three in one week in the Baltics, or SIX during our 2 week cruise. And city breaks mean meticulous planning; what to see, where to eat, what to pre-book, opening times, closing times… So in 2025 I’m determined to book ONE holiday where doing, seeing and thinking is at a minimum.

2025 has seen us visit 8 countries and 5 capital cities, take 4 flights from two different UK airports (neither of them being Birmingham) and 1 cruise ship from Southampton. We visited three brand new countries to us (Latvia, Estonia and Finland) and reached 31 countries visited in total.

Lisbon

March saw us taking our first European getaway of the year, for a little bit of spring sunshine in Lisbon. It was a city I’d been dying to visit for ages and we booked as a bit of an early birthday treat for Mr Fletche. It was clear by the forecast before we travelled that we may not get the anticipated sunshine. And there may be a little drizzle in the air. What we did not expect was the absolute deluge which caused rivers of water to flood the streets and a mini cyclone to hover the city. One thing was clear. We had to return.

These are some of the things you can do on a rainy city break in Lisbon!

2 week Med Cruise on P&O Arvia

We booked this trip with Ma and Pa Lee in celebration of their 70th birthdays. We took in three countries and six ports over 14 days, sailing from Southampton on P&O’s largest ship Arvia. Starting in La Coruna, we then headed to Palma, Cinque Terre, Marseille, Barcelona and Cadiz. It was a whirlwind visit to each city, and we packed our days with walking tours, food markets and some of the city’s most iconic sights. Palma and Cadiz are the two cities I wished we’d have been able to sample the nightlife in, Marseille was the biggest surprise of the trip and I was happy to finally introduce Ma and Pa Lee to our beloved Italy. Relaxing cruise? 169,000 steps. 68.5 miles.

You can find lots of cruise content here!

Lisbon (Take Two)

In September we headed back to Lisbon. We called this day three and four of our original two-day trip, and this time the weather couldn’t be better. Our plans to visit Sintra were scuppered by a forest fire risk, so we spent my birthday exploring the seaside town of Cascais, before having a wonderful birthday meal in Alfama and accidentally “strolling” up to one of the hills overlooking the city. The following day we visited Belem, home of the pasteis de Belem, queued for an hour at Jeronimos Monastery and strolled back to the city along the riverfront. We also finally paid a visit to the Tile Museum after our bus-trip-to-nowhere in March.

This was the first trip where we travelled with underseat cabin bags ONLY to avoid luggage fees! I wrote about how I managed it here.

Riga, Tallinn & Helsinki

Why do one country in a week when you can do two? Or how about three? Yes, in a very hectic week we strung together three city breaks in a very hectic itinerary which saw us travel from Latvia to Estonia, and then cross the Gulf of Finland for a day in Helsinki. I still have SO much content to write up from these trips, including our Riga Food Tour at Central Market, the ferry journey from Tallinn to Helsinki, our Flixbus journey, street art spotting, and of course, all my recommendations for eating and drinking. I have blogged about our jam-packed Baltic itinerary here though! And Estonia became the 30th country that Mr Fletche and I have visited together in 17 years ✈️

Gdansk

We finished off the year with a final city break of the year, this time for the Christmas markets in Gdansk. It’s a great city, with lots of beautiful architecture, fascinating museums and a turbulent history. We took a walking tour to get to know the city a little bit more, and sampled several local vodkas on a tasting tour. I’ve already written about the Gdansk Christmas market – mainly because I didn’t think anyone would be interested in reading about them in March – but I have plenty more blog posts to write up about our trip.

A Brummie in the UK in 2024

In February we headed off for our first trip to Wales in a few years. We booked a cottage in Dolgellau and planned a couple of lovely walks for the following day. There was a bath! And you all know how excited I get about a bath. And then I went and spoiled it all by doing something stupid like slipping down a grassy bank, falling awkwardly and twisting my ankle. I managed to limp forlornly to the local pub on the evening before collapsing into that bath for a good long soak. Thankfully there was no serious damage, and no emergency services were required. After all, we’ve been there before, haven’t we?

We’ve taken 5 trips to London this year. Some have been stopovers where we’ve explored new areas such as Battersea, Lower Marsh, South Kensington and Aldgate. Others have been fleeting daytime visits to catch a matinee theatre show, parking on the fringes of London at Cockfosters or Finchley Central. We paid our first visit to Cahoots, a vintage underground themed cocktail bar. And we finished the year off with a little Betwixtmas trip to catch a show and see the Christmas lights. London continues to be a city that we love. Although not the West End. Love the theatre, hate with a passion that whole area. We also met up with our friends Hayley and Paul in Milton Keynes for a couple of drinks and a good catch-up.

As well as eating and drinking in Brum we’ve continued visiting our neighbouring towns in Warwickshire, spending time in Kenilworth, Leamington Spa, Stratford upon Avon and Warwick. Leamington Spa has a great little cinema (i.e cheap) – although we still favour Digbeth’s Mockingbird – so we’ve doubled up dinner and a movie on a couple of occasions. We also enjoy visiting the food festivals in both Leam and Lichfield. We stumbled across the Warwick Classic Car Festival, on a day we also ended up pup-sitting outside the Old Post Office Pub. And in June we took advantage of the local tram links and popped over to Wolverhampton for a little Black Country pub crawl. Did you know they speak a whole different language over there?

A Brummie in Birmingham in 2024

We introduced Ma & Pa Lee to Smoke & Ash for a little Mother’s Day treat back in March; this Edgbaston pizzeria is one of our favourites, not least because they’re happy to switch to a dairy-free cheese on any pizza, which keeps Mr Fletche’s tummy happy. In other establishments we’ve just taken to ordering an extra meat topping on a vegan pizza.

We returned to plenty of old favourites throughout 2024, as well as sampling some of the newer venues. We ate Greek food at Mythos before a Katherine Priddy gig at the Glee Club, and amazing steak at Pasture to celebrate Pa Lee’s birthday. I finally got to sample the cocktails at the award-winning Passing Fancies in the Custard Factory. We took our friends Hayley & Paul to the new Yorks for brunch after an evening drinking around the Jewellery Quarter.

My team at work had a little outing to Golf Fang, and I had the pleasure of inviting some friends along to Sandbox VR for an excellent afternoon losing at Squid Game. I wrote about our gifted experience here.

A Cultural Brummie in 2024

During our March visit to London we booked impromptu tickets for the Accidentally Wes Anderson exhibition in South Kensington. For those not familiar, they are a travel site that curate photos taken from their community all around the world taken in the visually aesthetic style used by the film director Wes Anderson (The French Dispatch, Grand Budapest Hotel, Asteroid City). Although the exhibition has now closed, this is taken around the world and is currently (as of January 2025) in Melbourne. In August we spent a chilly evening at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, watching The Boy and the Heron with a pre-film performance of Ghibli classics from the Sekine Quartet.

Theatre

I saw 18 theatre shows in 2024, 11 of them press invites from the Alexandra, Birmingham Rep and Cobham Theatre. There were a few press nights I missed out on in 2024 for various reasons; the only one I was gutted to miss was Here and Now – especially when I heard that ACTUAL Steps performed during the curtain call! But I had a terrible cough and didn’t want to be THAT person in the audience spoiling everyone else’s night…

These were the shows I did see in 2024:

• Ghost Stories – Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham 🎭
• Guys & Dolls – Bridge Theatre, London
• Rent – Cobham Theatre, Bromsgrove 🎭
• Bonnie & Clyde – Wolverhampton Grand
• Peter Pan Goes Wrong – Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham 🎭
• Hadestown – Lyric Theatre, London
• Shrek – Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham 🎭
• Sister Act – Dominion Theatre, London
• Withnail & I – Birmingham Rep 🎭
• Come from Away – Birmingham Hippodrome
• The Sound of Music Stage Experience 2024 – Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham 🎭
• Pretty Woman The Musical – Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham 🎭
• Lord of the Dance – Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham 🎭
• Becoming Nancy – Birmingham Rep 🎭
• Dear Evan Hansen – Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham 🎭
• A Christmas Carol – Birmingham Rep 🎭
• The Book of Mormon – Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham
• Oliver! – The Gielgud Theatre, London

🎭 = Press Night/Gifted Tickets

There are two programmes missing from two of my favourites shows this year, both second time viewings for me. We wanted to share one of our favourite shows with Ma and Pa Lee so we took them to see the incredible Come from Away at the Birmingham Hippodrome in May. We even introduced them to Meat Shack beforehand 🍔. And as a belated 70th birthday treat I took Pa Lee to see The Book of Mormon at the Alexandra. Definitely NOT one to take Ma Lee too but Pa Lee loved it. You can see where I got my sense of humour from 😉

Without a doubt my favourite theatre experience of 2024 was Guys & Dolls at the Bridge Theatre back in January. We booked spontaneously just a few days before for a Saturday matinee, for the immersive tickets. If I was a little bit worried about standing for the duration of the 2hr 20min show I had no need to be; there was so much to focus on that I didn’t even think about my poor feet. Best bit of course was getting to boogie with Daniel Mays, Marisha Wallace and Cedric Neal at the end of the show 🪩 Another theatre-y highlight was seeing the amazing Rachel Tucker perform on our cruise – I got to meet a real-life Elphaba/Beverley Bass/Norma Desmond/Persephone!

Music

According to my Spotify Unwrapped though, I am now a certified Swiftie. I made the mistake of popping The Eras Tour on Disney+ on in the background. And then went on a deep dive through her back catalogue. And wondered if I could sell a kidney and get a last minute ticket to her UK tour. I stopped short of making beaded bracelets of my favourite songs (Illicit Affair though, amirite?) and remembered I was a 46 year old woman. Which didn’t stop me also getting sucked into a Chappel Roan vortex (Good Luck Babe! – song of the year?).

But when it comes to female vocalists, Nadine Shah is my absolute favourite, and we were lucky to see her twice this year, headlining a gig at the O2 Academy before supporting Elbow at their summer gig at Ludlow Castle. Guy Garvey was on top form as always, although we never got to the bottom of why he was on crutches.

In a two-gig month we also headed down to Crystal Palace to see Bloc Party, a birthday pressie for Mr Fletche. It peed down with rain, we may (or may not) have jumped a queue at a food stall and we definitely didn’t pay for our bus journey back to our hotel but we had an excellent day. And at the end of August we took our annual jaunt to Moseley for the Folk Festival. We already have our tickets for 2025.

We also saw tribute act Just Radiohead on our first visit to Deadwax Digbeth, local folk favourite Katharine Priddy twice (a solo gig and supporting Elbow) and Smoove & Turrell for the second time at the Hare & Hounds in Kings Heath.

Books and other stuff

I read 44 books in 2024, and had to stop myself from leaving charity shops with armfuls of books whilst I still have a TBR pile. I’ve already written about my favourite books of 2024 here. We discovered Bob’s Burgers whilst on the cruise, and it’s become our go-to light watch. Not-so-light watches included Baby Reindeer and Shogun. But Ripley was probably our recommendation of the year, if only for the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography and moody shots of Italy. We’re about a month into a 3 month free trial of Apple TV so we’re trying to binge-watch Slow Horses, Severance, Silo and Ted Lasso.

We’ve visited the cinema a handful of times this year – naturally I saw Wicked on the weekend it came out. But Wild Robot was our pick of the new movies this year. I appeared to have something in my eye on more than one occasion.

In December 2024 I finally broke up with Duolingo. I have 1700+ days of Italian under my belt (sotto la mia cintura). From about the 1500 day mark it decided to stop teaching me anything new, just re-hashing old lessons. So I parted ways with the little owl.

A Brummie at Home in 2024

2024 was all about celebrating Ma & Pa Lee’s 70th birthdays, which fell in April and June respectively. We took both out for lovely meals, to St Paul’s House for a Sunday roast with bottomless drinks, and to the newly opened Pasture Birmingham. And I took both to see theatre shows – Ma Lee to Sister Act (thank you Mr Fletche for driving us down and hanging around London!) and Pa Lee to The Book of Mormon right here in Brum. And of course, the Med Cruise was booked to celebrate both birthdays. They’ve taken to cruising like ducks to water. So much so that they’re off for almost three weeks later on this year.

As a family of Birmingham City fans we looked on in despair as our club plunged out of the Championship and into League 1. And then looked on in excitement as we splashed the cash, started playing pretty football and (checks Sky Sports) are currently top of the league. It’s never dull being a Blues fan.

I’m still working as a Senior Training Coordinator for Balfour Beatty Vinci, and I have a fantastic team. In September I was recognised for my work coordinating our Supervisor Development Programme, of which over 1000 supervisors are participating. And then in November, I went down to London with some of the team for a fantastic Construction News Workforce awards evening at the Grosvenor Hotel. I got to put on a fancy dress and practice my winning/losing face. We didn’t come home with the award, but I did come home with sore feet and a bit of a headache🥴. I even got chance to pull on my PPE and go and see the progress of one of our sites – not sure if orange is my colour!

I requalified as a Mental Health First Aider. On the one hot weekend of August we spent an afternoon in a pub garden celebrating a friend’s 60th, and in September had the pleasure of celebrating my aunt’s 80th. Entertainment was provided by Yam Yam Elvis. I use the word “entertainment” lightly. I remain a medical mystery as even private consultants can’t get to the bottom of my dry mouth issue. Maybe 2025 is the year my GP starts believing in perimenopause.

Oh, I took up jigsaw puzzling in 2024. I started Vermeer’s “The Girl With The Pearl Earring” on 10th February. And on 13th July – just five months later – we could finally have our dining table back. Pa Lee has been tasked with building me a board for 2025 puzzling. After all, I have TWO versions of Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss” to complete in 2025 🧩

A Brummie Home and Abroad in 2025?

When Pa Lee casually mentioned about five years ago that he’d quite like to visit Marrakesh we started to tentatively make plans. After all, there’s no way I’d let Ma and Pa Lee loose in a souk on their own. And Pa Lee though a riad was a tent. Then 2020 happened. And all travel plans went out the window. But in 2025 we’re going to make his dreams come true and we’ve booked a short break for the four of us at the end of March.

Another casualty of those travel embargo years was our Japan trip. But we’re going to do a bit of research and it may well be back in the travel plans for 2025. Instead of the cherry blossoms, we are thinking of going a little later in the year to catch the fall colours. Although after watching BBC’s Race Across the World earlier this year, Vietnam/Cambodia/Thailand are also contenders. But probably without the 18 hour bus journeys, pocket money budget and lack of planning.

And then we watched Celebrity Race Across the World. So now Ecuador/Columbia/Argentina are also on the list. We need to start whittling down our options. But I have a zero ending birthday in 2027, and it’s our 20th wedding anniversary in 2028 so all are perfect excuses for a “big” holiday. Not as though we need one. But I’m definitely planning one of those nice relaxing lie-on-a-sunlounger-with-drink-in-hand holidays at some point in 2025.

Theatre and live music

Mr Fletche presented me with Cabaret tickets for Christmas. Which had me asking if he had remortgaged the house or sold a vital organ. Turns out that both the house and his vital organs are intact. Thankfully. We also had a Ticketmaster voucher from Ma and Pa Lee for Christmas, which we’re going to use for A Curious Case of Benjamin Button tickets.

In terms of Birmigham theatre, I’m looking forward to the return of The Rocky Horror Show in March and to Ghost the Musical in April, both at the Alexandra. The Birmingham Hippodrome has Six and Kinky Boots returning. Both theatres have big West End style shows in the form of Miss Saigon (at the Alexandra) and Moulin Rouge (at the Hippodrome) so it will be interesting to see how the spaces are adapted.

Don’t tell Mr Fletche but we’re off to Leeds in April for the weekend to see the band Divorce at the Brudenell Social Club. It was fun googling that one. I got all sorts of dodgy Facebook ads from law firms. In May, we’re seeing Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox at Symphony Hall for some jazzy versions of familiar tunes. After the success of our day at Ludlow Castle in 2024, we’re repeating the experience, this time to see Supergrass supported by Jake Bugg and The Cribs. Remind me to ask Ma and Pa Lee about accommodation and a lift. And we’ve booked our tickets for Moseley Folk Festival, on the Saturday this time for a change, mainly to see Father John Misty

I’m sure that the rest of our 2025 diary will fill up soon with lots of exciting plans. Although last year we crammed so much in that I think at one point we had plans for something like 9 weekends straight so I definitely need to factor in more downtime in 2025.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look back over 2024. Are you making plans for 2025? Let me know in the comments! I wish you a healthy and happy New Year, whatever it may bring!

Emmalene, A Brummie Home and Abroad xx