Having a monogrammed neonesque light on your living room wall probably isn't particularly modest, but in my defense @marley.rude gave it to me, and it does look banging!

Manchester, United Kingdom

Thanks to everyone who sent me lockdown-birthday wishes, and to @marley.rude for organising a mock pub crawl with open-air recreations of @penandpencilnq @piccadilly_tap @thefontmcr and @yes_mcr complete with booze and props! Also to @thekoffeepot for basically feeding us all weekend with their burger and pancake kits which I'm still living off even into Tuesday!

Amsterdam

Some delayed pics from DrupalCon in #amsterdam! 🇳🇱🚲🤓🇪🇺💪🏻

One day I'll figure out how to make my eyes work when someone's taking a photo of me! 🙄 Thank you for a banging wedding @megan__k__ and @brian_shutter! 😘

Rock Over Climbing

I CAME IN LIKE A WWWWRRREEEEECCCKKKIIIINNNGGGGH BALL! ⚫

Berlin, Germany

After Melt we hung out in Berlin for a bit anywhere with AC, water to swim in, or Schofferhofer to drink. I didn't end up sitting in it, but the seat I was assigned on the return flight didn't have a cushion, just the bare plastic and metal that holds up the seat... Luckily the seat next to it was free, but it seemed quite a fitting return from Berlin and living in hotel rooms to work and the grot of Manchester 👎🏻

Melt Festival

Went back to @meltfestival in Deutschland, and it was sehr sehr gut! Swimming in the lake by day, nursing Tetra-Pak babies with @cjeporter and @sanne_bosmans in the twilight, and dancing on sand and amongst diggers by night 😌 We caught the heatwave in Germany but also an epic thunderstorm one evening with a load of thunder, lightning, and dodging airborne gazebos as anything that wasn't properly staked down in the campsite went walkabouts, including a portaloo which we saw topple over and then miraculously was put the right way up and cleaned up before the storm even seemed to be over. A++ organisation from Melt, would festival again👌

Riga, Latvia

Some pictures that our guide took of @marley.rude and I when we went kayaking on a tour of Riga (a surprise from Marli for my birthday but the tour company took a while to send the photos) #wholesome 💦

Pullman Riga Old Town Hotel

Thanks to @marley.rude for a banging birthday/first day in Riga, excellent party hat construction and birthday card Photoshopping (not quite suitable for showing on Instagram), and conspiring with the hotel to have balloons and booze waiting in our room!

Casa Pepe

Finished up the trip with more drinks, more tacos, more murals, tequila shopping to take home, gross spicy/salty mango sweets to take into work (sorry guys), and sunset drinks on the hostel roof!

Teotihuacán

But then I went in a hot air balloon over Teotihuacán and everything was well again! I'd booked on a combined balloon ride with a guided tour of the pyramid site after, but everyone else on the balloon had only booked the balloon trip so in the end I ended up with a one on one private tour of the pyramids with me and a guide, which was a bit intense but also pretty cool!

For the next few days I tried to hang, cycle (on Sundays Reforma, a massive road, gets closed for the afternoon for people to cycle/scoot/jog on, which is pretty cool, but I was _far_ too hungover to fully appreciate), eat, and culture my way out of a persistent hangover and sense that my body couldn't quite handle so many street tacos...

Xochimilco, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Next up was a day of some driving around archaeological sites, a brief jaunt into Coyoacan, but really we all just wanted to start daydrinking on boats in Xochimilco! Later we'd have a really nice dinner and then frantically work out why there were so many zeros on the drinks part of our bill... Turns out the restaurant had been serving us £125-a-bottle tequila without any of us knowing (or asking them beforehand) just how high end it was... Oops!

Zócalo

My first day started at 5am local time or something ungodly like that, and finding out the early check-in I asked for wasn't available, so hanging out at the hostel till breakfast and the obligatory walking tour, then my first round of tacos, some beers, and finishing the day with Lucha Libre and more tacos! 🤼🌮

I'm finally doing a dump of all my Mexico (from the end of April) photos before Marli and I go to Riga tomorrow for my birthday! 🎉🎊 (God forbid my Instagram grid becomes non-chronological!) This post is mostly just photos I took while trying to pretend to be completely chill and totally used to flying Business class and having Mile-High wine and cheese and a duvet to sleep under... More interesting (and colourful!) photos to come!

It's not a super obvious or uncomplicated place to pick for some winter sun, but I had fun in Tel Aviv last week (tempted by cheap flights via @jacksflightclub, as per usual). I was expecting to see more security and military presence but Tel Aviv felt like a super chill city, people were friendly, and the coldest day was about 15°c warmer than Manchester was when I left!

Siren Asylum

Getting messy (figuratively and literally, UV wise) at @space_cassette_mcr

'Dress as a pun/idiom/play on words' NYE with me as 'under the weather' and Marli as 'reigning cats and dogs'... Photos stolen from myself, Aoife and @cjporterphotography!

Porto, Portugal

🎤🔊 Sound on! @marley.rude and I are PROFESSIONAL TRAVEL VLOGGERS/INFLUENCERS now, can't wait to retire off all that sweet sweet #sponcon revenue! #ad #partnerships #influencers #vlogsquad #vlogginglife #travelblogger #travelcouple #giveusfreestuff

Porto, Portugal

We took a funicular railway, bridge, cable car, and about a million photos to cross over the river Douro