(as my mum unfailingly said at the end of every single school holiday.)

Cameron has gone back at work and the rest of us are stuck in the house waiting for somebody to come and look at the gas meter. So far it hasn’t been as bad as expected: after 7 weeks of visitors, presents, biscuits and chocolate I was expecting M to be a complete horror but it’s only been quite dreadful, no worse. Touch wood. I even got her to eat an apple this morning: she had a friend round to play, which helped in terms of occupation if not in terms of preventing the house becoming completely trashed (but hey, who’s going to notice, we have strata of mess these days.)

All my blog “issues” prevented me writing anything over Christmas (but it would no doubt have been a catalogue of cake eaten and friends seen: nice to do but perhaps not to read), but I have uploaded some pictures of the girls enjoying themselves. Going out for dinner was a fantastic idea if I do say so myself – I got to spend the morning watching M with her presents rather than peeling sprouts. We went to the hotel around 11.30, in time for M to charm the pianist by dancing to his music, then there was carol singing followed by Father Christmas with presents for the children, followed by a 5-course dinner. Neither parsnips nor bread sauce but you can’t have everything, and the chocolate mousse more than compensated.

And now we are into a new year. I don’t really do resolutions but am finding myself thumbing through seed catalogues every evening with fingers itching to get out and dig. Is it immoral to tie one’s toddler to a stake, like a goat, in order to get on?

…but not quite a new me, in that I am still trying to do a million things at once and mostly failing to do any of them. I do, however, find myself with a new website (still under construction but open to visitors: just watch your step and wear a hard hat at all times please) a mere year after threatening it. What do you think? Smart, eh. Let’s see what happens when I hit “publish”.

PS anyone with links to the old turquoise, don’t forget to update them.