A Melee of good cheer

Hello my little New Year blinky eyed sproglings. It is back to having my bum on this chair at work and sneaking a few sentances off while my boss is out the office.

I am satisfied today because I allowed myself a wondrous day of tidying yesterday and locked myself inside the house until just after 3pm. I then went out for a cup of earl grey with Catherine & Damian in the afternoon then came home, cut Nick's hair and cooked a carbonara tagliatelli using a recipe from my new cookbook, Tamasin Day-Lewis' 'Kitchen Bible'. It really is a brilliant book and the bestest christmas present ever. I made some peanut cookies on Saturday using her recipe and they turned out lovely too. The carbonara recipe doesn't use any cream or milk, but lots of parmesan, egg and white wine which makes the pasta all gooey and gorgeous. Mmmmm. I am going to try her kedgeree recipe later this week with smoked haddock.

The main thing to say is that I have quit smoking. It was midnight New Years Eve and I stubbed out the last fag for good. I don't miss it, it feels really nice not to smell of stale smoke and not to have ashtrays round the house. What a good girl eh! I am reading the Allan Carr book to help me on my way, it is really amazingly helpful, if a little repetitive but that is what you need, to have it drummed in again and again and again how crap it is to smoke. Nick's incessant morning cough is dwindling as he's also given up. I think he's finding it harder because he isn't using the book.

I spent New Years Eve in the Cornerstone pub, it wasn't too hectic and we could hear ourselves speak, get served quickly and also sing kareoke. Although I didn't get a chance to but Nick managed some Englebert Humperdink. We slept the night in the new flat, even though its not really liveable yet we managed to make the downstairs spare bedroom nice and spent our very first night there. We also ate the most manky hawaiian burgers ever. And got soaked in the rain. But I slept like a log and it was really peaceful there, no traffic noise or anything which is incredible when it is so close to town.

I think I may be going for a meal out tonight becuase it's Rew's birthday plus several people have hinted they want to meet for a drink. Am feeling a bit tired tho becuase the nasty folk across the road made a right racket last night, it sounded as if they were dragging metal pipes across the road. Bastards.

Oh, Molly is back. We collected her a day late as we got our flights wrong and we turned up to collect her sans cat basket as well because we're stupid. So we put her in a small cardboard box which she promptly jumped out of and went mental in the car on the drive home. Its not much fun trying to drive with a cat miowing on your lap. She seems pleased to be home and hasn't been sick once, just very affectionate.

So as far as New Years resolutions go, I think I've got a lot on this year so I don't need to give myself any targets or anything, but I am going to try and lose the few pounds I put on over Christmas and maybe join an aerobics class. We'll see about that though because I am exceptionally lazy.




I'M GETTING MARRIED THIS HEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!