I haven’t been able to write for weeks. I don’t know why but words just do not seem to flow anymore.

I’ve tried everything. I’ve blocked out time to just sit down and write. I have sat down and gone through my hard disks full of pictures over and over again to find inspiration. I have opened the Everywhereist and reread old posts more than I care to admit. But nothing seems to work. Nothing has yet spilled on this screen, no moment of sparks that made me go ‘aha’. Even if I had set myself a topic to write, I opened up my blank canvas, browsed through the pictures that I could potentially use, and did not feel inspired to write.

So the only way left now is to address the elephant in the room: the writer’s block itself. I have decided to look at the gargantuan problem straight into the eyes and say, “Hey I acknowledge your presence. Now can you please get the heck out of here?”

And I know that it’s not because of a lack of stuff to write. I have so much that I want to share with you from the countless trips that I took over the past two years. But I guess this being a travel blog, I sometimes find it inappropriate to share about my past trips when I’m technically not an active traveller anymore, at least for now.

And when I looked at old pictures from this year (yes all those travelling days felt soo long ago), I was surprised at how much I have forgotten, and there were even pictures of myself that I did not recognise. It felt much like when I was reading “The world this year” section of The Economist’s Christmas Special edition. I kept saying to myself “I can’t believe this happened earlier this year.”

So here are some of those moments, the forgotten pictures that have been part as much a part of 2017 as those that I had somehow remembered more vividly.

A picture of pure happiness of me at a Copenhagen Metro station. My happiness knew no place.

Exploring the Notting Hill Bookshop with my gorgeous friends.

A sneaky snap of Karl Marx’s tomb after the Highgate Cemetery closed for the day.

This random barista smiling at my camera at the London Coffee Festival.

The moment I caught these people posing exactly the same way at the UCL campus in London. (Okay I might have asked my friend to pose to fill in the empty bench).

The French presidential election at the French Embassy in London.

Shopping at the Peckham Salvage Yard, aka the day we realised we were no hipsters.

The happiest I’ve ever looked eating vegetables.

And finally the photo when I did not run back in time for our self-timed photo in Swansea.

When dark clouds are hanging over you, it is often easy to forget that not so long ago, you were that happy. Looking at these pictures was as a reminder that perhaps not so long from now, the dark clouds will get blown away, and you can be that happy again.

Thank you 2017 for being quite a year: a year of missteps, missed moments and most importantly, a year that I would never forget.