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April 2025 - Bring on Summer

April 2025

This was a month I was looking forward to and it exceeded expectations: Brazil, Rome and a cup final for my Sunday team made it a memorable month. There was one that ended in disappointment though (no prizes for guessing which one!)

It was great seeing some of my old friends from my days back in Australia after 7 years. After that time away from eachother, I was a little anxious to see how we would all get on but it was like we'd never been away. With them being Irish they were as happy as ever with no awkward silences had, apart from when waiting on them to turn up. Timekeeping was never a strength of theirs but as imperfections go there are a lot worse :) 

 The wedding was beautiful and the switches between English and Portuguese in the ceremony were almost seamless. How much the Brazilian contingent got of the best man speech I'm not sure, but likely more of what we understood of the bride's side speeches. 

One of my goals was to learn a bit of Portuguese to help get by when we got there, and immediately was required checking in to the first hotel and their English was as good as my Portuguese! Between us we made it work, which was pretty rewarding. Will continue to carry on with Portuguese for the meantime and see how I can enhance it further. 

After the Wedding there was a night in Sao Paulo so didn't get to experience the city with the rest of the time being spent between Rio and Ilha Grande before finishing the trip in Rome. Football, hiking, beaches, sightseeing, quality food, quality people and DOGS! The perfect holiday to get over winter blues and rubbish back home, coming back with a change in headspace. Would love to be able to getaway and clear the head more often and this is a 'why' for striving towards financial independence. 

Liquid Assets

Midway through the month it was looking very gloomy for the assets, with my ISA value even being under £90K, but the recovery at the end of the month limited the damage, albeit still down again this month. Lumped a bit into the ISA in April but sadly not at the time the value was at it's lowest. 



I must go as I have some more money to burn through, with it being the bank holiday this weekend. Hope everyone has a great one! 

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