Crimbo and all that

If you ever wondered what happened to that Christmas card that never arrived ... well it is probably adorning a Royal Mail office somewhere. We always have a nice little display of cards that have become irreparably separated from their envelopes and have zero hope of ever reaching their intended recipient. The thing about my job is that mainly we're just glad when Christmas is over, so we have to get our fun where we can. I have spent an inordinate amount of time in the last few weeks looking up postcodes for people who couldn't be bothered to address their cards properly; some cards made it that might not otherwise have done so, and in the end the karma is balanced.

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 ...