Wishing all my readers and blog friends a Wonderful and Happy New Year.
Thank you to everyone who reads my little blog and to those who leave a comment. I always find such pleasure reading them; hearing snippets of your own lives, little words of encouragement and advice – I welcome it all, it builds connection and we certainly need more of that in today’s world.
Many of you, both bloggers and readers, will no doubt be thinking of the year stretching ahead and what it might bring, what you wish for, what changes you would like to make, places you want to go and people you want to see and not forgetting those dear to us, but sadly, not with us anymore.
I love this day, more than any other.
That marvellous feeling of ‘the blank page’ with an air of excitement and an expectation that perhaps a dream you have had for so long might come true. Or perhaps, like me, you are hoping for a year where you can get to grips with your life and if you feel like you are just bobbing about like a boat on the water, going nowhere fast, set yourself on a new course and break free from any accumulated bad habits and that feeling of being in a rut.
Of course, just as bad habits accumulate over time, inching their way into your life unintentionally, it takes time to establish new ones and often slow and steady wins the race; not being one to rush into anything, this will certainly be a year of slow change.
And hopefully change that will last.
Did you all have a good New Year’s Eve? – whether celebrating with family, friends or even your own company; staying up or going to bed at the usual time.
We spend Christmas with our family and always New Year’s Eve with friends. For us it is a good balance and another of those ‘it works for me’ moments, so this is one thing in my life that will continue.
We had a different take on our get together this year which would normally be during the evening and well past midnight, always tuning into Jools Holland for the countdown. This year our hosts decided their year had been hard and they were tired, so they hosted an afternoon get together until just after 6pm.
On the morning I asked if I could bring something and the reply came… ‘something sweet’. I hurriedly checked in the fridge and found fresh raspberries, we had nuts too from making the nutroast and cake and DH dashed down to our friendly Co-op for a tub of cream.
So out of nowhere, and after a seriously long phone call with my Sis-in -law that delayed production of my hasty effort, I managed to produce this Raspberry and Hazelnut Roulade within the hour. It is a recipe I have done so many times before, basically a swiss roll mix with ground hazelnuts and you crush a heap of raspberries into the cream (or you can use creme fraiche) then spread it onto the cake base and roll – I threw on a few festive sprinkles this time for good measure and just to glam it up a bit.
It was well received and vanished within minutes. I will put the recipe in the Menu section on my header strip and I can vouch for the fact it is relatively quick and easy – and quite an impressive dessert, though mine did crack a bit in places – nothing that a little piped cream didn’t cover and hide any flaws!
After a lovely time chatting with friends we hadn’t seen for ages and sampling the bits and pieces layed out on the table we left for home just before 7pm. It was a brisk walk with our empty cake tin in the freezing cold and we were glad to get inside and warm up. The preprepared curry DH had made yesterday may also have helped!
We started to nod off during Vera (we had seen it before) so switched over to watch Ken Dodd, the unseen footage – there is nothing like a good laugh for that well being feeling – and ended up going to bed later than intended and we were still awake at midnight listening to the local fireworks going off outside and the constant tune alerts on my phone as the Happy New Year messages started to come in from our family.
We have a very strange new year message, known only to a few in the family, which is Shimme Hips Wob. It is a standing joke from when I had my first mobile phone for Christmas a long time ago. It had predictive text, of a sort, but not very sophiticated and of course, as with most of these things, it learns over time what you want to say. I am 100% certain I typed in happy new year, however, the message was ‘predictively’ changed as the phone didn’t recognise these words I had typed and substituted some of its own. I had no idea how to change it back to what I wanted and in trying the message got sent. It read ‘Shimme Hips Wob love Mummy Nonmo and Daddy Faddidy!!
And so that sticks even today and I still get cards written by my daughters to mummy nonmo – quite an affectionate term I think.
So, today is that day when the festivities are truly at an end, well for us anyway, we have the day ahead to rest, chat, make a new batch of soup, maybe watch some TV and grab an early night. I might look to do a review tomorrow – taking stock.
Until then, this is mummy nonmo signing off and Shimme Hips Wob to you all x
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where the journey takes me 2 