10 good things that happened in 2016

2016 was a bit of a rubbish year, many celebrities died, we had the whole Brexit problem (it's ok I'm moving north if Scotland goes independent) and I feel like sometimes I live in a society that isn't understanding of others. There is hope for 2017 I think but I thought I would start 2017 with a post about 10 good things that happened to me in 2016. This is a carry on from my 18 things I've learned in 2016 post if you haven't read that one you should. Here are 10 good things that happened in 2016:

1. I helped organise the first This Girl Can award evening in Newcastle. 

I was really lucky and got asked to help organise Newcastle's first This Girl Can award evening after being an ambassador for over a year I couldn't have been more excited to help. It was a great event with over 200 women all there to support each other for the work they had done in their community.

2. I got my first real job.

When I say real job I mean a job that is related to my degree. In April I became Newcastle's Ping Activity Officer, my job involves me looking after table tennis across Newcastle and developing a free program across the city. I love it, I've had my moments with it but I think I've found my feet and can't wait to start 2017 program. 

Me and my colleagues at the launch of Ping in Newcastle

3. I passed my driving test the first time and I got my first car.

This was a big step for me in June I passed my driving test and got my first ever car. Driving for me was more of a necessity than a pleasure. I have a love/hate relationship with cars I'm on to my second car after my first one decided to break 2 weeks after buying it and as I'm writing this my second car is in the garage after breaking down. Who knows I might have a better year when it comes to cars in 2017 but I do like driving and I'm glad I've done it now. 

4. I got lots of amazing blogging opportunities.

I was a lucky girl this year with the number of opportunities I got through blogging. I was able to go to the Mineral House at the Crowne Plaza to do a review of the spa. I've been to a number of ElleFluence event that the lovely Laura runs for Northeast blogger and who I must say is an amazing lady. I've been sent amazing products to try out including some Adidas products from Blacks and even got to trail out anytime fitness in Gateshead.

5. I tried out 2 new fitness classes.

This year I got to try out 2 very different types of fitness classes. The first one was a trampette fitness class that was run by the lovely Nicki at Great Park Community Centre and the other was the Extreme Air class at Newcastle's new Trampoline centre. 

6.  I started going to church.

2016 was about learning and this year I learned that I needed to do things for myself. For around a year, i had been thinking about going to church but I didn't go because I felt that people around me would think differently of me. In August I watched one of Louise's (Sprinkle of Glitter) video about religion and how she had taken the step towards becoming a Christian. I think that was what helped me take the leap and about a month later I took my first step into the church and Christianity, I went to a 4:30 pm service and I never turned back. I've started to find what I was looking for and I think its helped to make me a better person. I even finished a 7-week course called Christianity explored which was a massive help for me, I'm excited to see what my next step is. 

7. I ran my first 10K 

One of the many opportunities, I got this year included the chance to run the Mo run. I talked all year about how I wanted to run at least one 10k this year and I did. You can ready about it here.

8. I went on my first ever winter holiday to Poland.

This was 1 of the main highlights this year. I had never been on a holiday abroad in Winter and I was really excited when my sister agrees to go to Wroclaw with me. It was amazing, I'm in the middle of putting a photo diary together so keep an eye out for that in 2017.

9. I ran my fastest 5K with a personal best of 27.57

The 10th December just before Christmas I ran my fastest ever 5k at Newcastle's Parkrun. I was going for around a 30 minutes finish after not being able to get below that. I somehow was able to not be far behind the 28 minutes pacer and absolutely trashed my last personal best by a whole 2 minutes. I felt that this was one of my biggest achievements this year.

10. I met Mr. M. 

If you've read my 18 things I've learned in 2016 you will know that I was very lucky and met Mr. M. I'm not going to go into loads of details about him because I want to try and keep some things private, that might chance later on but for now I like our little private bubble. What I will say tho is that meeting him was definitely one of the highlights in 2016. We already have quite a few plans for 2017 which I'm definitely looking forward to. 

It's strange because I thought I would find it really hard to write this post hard as I thought that actually not much good had happened to me in 2016 but it shows that even the littlest of things can make you happy. 

Mineral House Review

I was recently very lucky to be invited to the new spa, The Mineral House which is situated in the brand new Crowne Plaza Stephenson Quarter. I’ve never been the kind of girl that loves going to a spa resort, as I find it quite hard to relax in general. I was given a voucher to go to The Mineral House by my colleagues as a Thank you gift for the work I had done for the This Girl Can awards recently. I thought this would be a good chance to try and get in the spa mood to see if I could actually relax.

  In case you don’t know or haven’t seen it. The Crowne Plaza is right behind Central Station, when you head round you can’t miss it, as it is huge. The Crowne Plaza is part of a huge regeneration that is happening at Stephenson Quarter, with lots of new exciting things happening in the area. Which i'm looking forward to seeing.

The Mineral House is part of the hotel and is based in the basement of the hotel. I had already seen the spa before, as I had gone down to see it with a colleague when we were looking for raffle prizes for an award evening we were doing. As soon as you walk out of the lift you come in to that relaxing spa environment, you feel calm as soon as you walk out the lift. Once you’re out of the lift, you head down to the reception, which you can’t miss, which is great as I’ve been to facilities in the past where, just finding the reception is a mission in itself. The staff there were lovely and very helpful as I had to ask for my treatment to be changed as I had been recommended by my doctor to not have a back message. They were happy to change it and I decided to get my nails done instead (another new thing for me).

The staff changed my appointment for 1:30pm and we were allowed to use the facilities for 2 hours before hand. The facilities include a swimming pool, Jacuzzi, steam room and gym. I got there early and wanted to try and get full use of everything. The staff showed me to a relaxation area which was small but cosy. I filled in a form and was given my robe and slippers and I was ready to go, the changing rooms were a decent size which large lockers and good size showers which were filled with White Company product (always a winner in my book).

Anyone that knows me knows I hate swimming it is one sport/exercise that I just hate. Water is something I try and stay away from but I’ve been trying to change that since I injured my back and it put me out of using the gym for the last month. After getting changed and taken the typical spa selfie, I made my way to the pool area. The swimming pool was a good size for the amount of people that were there and the Jacuzzi was your normal size Jacuzzi. I spent most of my time in the Jacuzzi, which was great as I do like Jacuzzis but what I didn’t like was the timer, it must have been set for like a minute as I always had to turn it back on which is a little bit annoying. The Jacuzzi was great for my back and I actually started to relax, like a said at the beginning I’m not good at relaxing and being in my own company for too long as I get bored but I did well.

I decided the next thing to try out was the steam room which I did absolutely love. It was small but as long as too many people aren’t in there then you’re good. I spent a good amount of time in there as well.

When I did eventually get in the pool, it was ok like I said I’m not a fan of water and swimming pools. I did a few laps of the pool it’s not massive but big enough to do a decent swim. The temperature of the pool for me was just too cold so I didn’t stay in too long.

A few other bloggers had started coming in and were in the relaxation area and I heard that there was mocktails and nibbles so I was straight there. A met a few people that I hadn’t met before which was great as I love meeting new people and it’s always good to see old faces as well. We chatted for a while before people started heading to there treatments or to use the facilities.

The part I was excited about trying out was the gym, I love going to the gym and after being out for a month and a half decided that it was time to try and get back into it. I had been given a few exercises that I could do with my back and thought I would try out The Mineral Houses gym as they had quite a bit in there. I’ve not used many hotel gyms but the ones I have, have always been really small. The Mineral House’s gym isn’t massive but it bigger than your average hotel gym. It has everything you need including all cardio machines a good amount of weight machines but my favourite part was the wide seclection of dumbbell, bars and medicine balls. I did a quick 15 minutes HITT workout using dumbbells and the medicine balls (I’m hoping to get this workout up on my blog next week) before heading for my treatment. 

After doing 20 minutes in the gym it was time for my treatment, I quickly got changed and grabbed my stuff before heading to the reception area to get my nails done. I have only ever had my nails done once and that was 4 years ago for a girl’s holiday. The lady that did my nail used the brand Orly which I’m going to talk about in a smaller post.  I don’t look after my nails so she had a hard job making them look good but she did a great job. I went for a dark red/berry colour which is a colour I use a lot on my lips so I knew I would love it. She also told me darker colour always look better on short nails which is great for me as I have really small nails. The treatment took about 20 minutes. I was really impressed with the finish she told me the polish should last up to double the time of normal nail polish. She told me my nails would be touch dry in 8 minutes which they were which was good as I had a busy afternoon planned. There was other treatments you could get including facials and back treatments.

Overall I really enjoyed the day, for someone who isn’t really bothered by spa I really enjoyed it. I’ve booked up to go again in May with my partner we are having a similar thing but I’m hoping to have a back massage and we will be having afternoon tea at Hawthorns so I should have a little review of that up after that. I would definitely recommend The Mineral House; it’s in a great location and you can get some great packages for the spa and for the restaurants and bars upstairs. We were given a goodie bag at the end and it was full of products that I'm excited to try out, maybe not the tanning stuff as I don't use tan but the other stuff I'll keep you updated on.  

I actually left the spa feeling great and kind of understand why people go to spa, I don’t think it will become a regular thing but I definitely will try and go more than once a year. 

If you would like to try out the Mineral House I'll leave all the links below.

Mineral House Website / Facebook / Twitter

What's your favourite treatment to have at a spa?