I have had an appalling blogging year with a pitiful 30 (including this one) posts. This does not reflect the amount of actual reading done since there have been several multi-review catch-up posts. It has been an eventful year on the home front with our momentous house acquisition and subsequent months of hard graft with the paint roller. I think I knitted a baby cardigan for a friend at work six months ago, and Claire and I made a granny square blanket for Auntie Ann but other creative output has been negligible. I did discover a new love, orange polenta cake:
It is made to this recipe by Jamie Oliver but without the fancy stuff. The first one I made was vegan as well as gluten-free and had stewed apples instead of the eggs. It was pretty yummy for a thing that I would barely allow the title 'cake'. The non-vegan version has a much better texture and, considering that it has no icing (a prerequisite for cake usually), it is my new favourite treat.
Quick scan down this year's posts reveals a moderately pitiful 30 books. It didn't get a proper review but the best read of the year was definitely 'All The Light We Cannot See' by Anthony Doerr.
On the plus side I have successfully kept my new year's resolution. Last new year I resolved not to beat myself up about stuff; it has been remarkably freeing to just let go of things that I might otherwise have brooded over. It has been a regular topic of conversation when things in life have not gone quite as smoothly as I might intend, and I have encouraged the girls to take the same approach when things don't go to plan. I have also gone another year without buying any new clothes. I did this a few years ago without too much hardship and then when XR started a pledge thing to get people to stop buying clothes for a year I found I had already not bought anything for six months anyway.
2020 offers some interesting new prospects: Tish quit her job so we are going to pitch in and help her find a new one. Lewis and Rachel are getting married in August, which will be lovely. And I intend to apply to join the natural build course with Harwyn this summer; things have conspired against the last two summers, but maybe ...