A New Year, a new start

Happy, if belated, New Year to you all.

I have been missing for some time now, but I do have some valid excuses.

First of all, as some of you know, I work full time in a university and before Christmas we were extremely busy. I really was working flat out.  I did cook (and what a lot I have to tell you about later) but preparing and photographing, then eating and clearing up took more time than I anticipated and I didn’t get round to actually writing about it.

Then I got bronchitis and two weeks of my life disappeared in a coughing, spluttering haze. A month later and I am still coughing.

Not only that….but there was snow. Lots of snow.

There were days where the only light seemed to be that reflected from the snow. I’d get up and look out of my bedroom window and see that the snow hadn’t melted at all.  Temperatures were regularly -9 or -10° C  overnight and first thing in the morning.

The lake outside my window at work was frozen.

The poor swans would walk across the ice to the only bit that wasn’t frozen solid.

They’d even walk up to the Students’ Union shop in the hope people would feed them.

Anyway, dosed up with antibiotics and Day Nurse,  The Bear and I  headed home to the North for Christmas where I was sure that I’d have time to write up everything.

The thing was, the snow had fallen more heavily in the North and it had been colder. Eight and ten inches of snow had fallen on some nights. I’d heard that the weight of the snow had started to tear down the guttering…..

That was the sight that greeted me at the top of the stairs. Guttering hanging down.

The weight of the snow as it slipped on the roof, without melting, ripped the gutters off and they had either fallen to the ground or dangled, hopelessly across the windows.

Icicles were nearly the length of the windows.

In the kitchen, the pipe from the sink and dishwasher had frozen so we (actually, the Bear did it)  had to wash up in the bathroom handbasin.

The guttering coming down had torn down the telephone lines so the internet connection was lost…. it was all going downhill rapidly.

The bright spot was, of course, seeing my family again and, best of all, my brother and his wonderful wife making Christmas Dinner for us all.

We had a great day….

And there was even a gluten free Christmas pudding for my brother, that was so delicious we decided we never again wanted any other sort of Christmas pudding.  My sister in law is now the acclaimed Pudding Queen of the family.

So. There are my excuses – work, illness, snow, lack of internet and lack of time.

What am I going to do about it? Well, I shall start by getting on with the writing up of the best of the recipes I made over the past month or so and hope that you start to read them again.

Happy New Year!

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