One year on...

Yep, this blog is a whole year old! I didn't quite manage 365 photos in 365 days for Project 365, but it's been a fab introduction to the world of blogging and a really fun way of recording the things that happen in my life.

Today's photo has nothing to do with my blogiversary, however - it's just a nice view I spotted while out and about!

Cough, sniff, sneeze...repeat until seriously annoyed...

This has been my survival kit over the last few days. I'm starting 2011 with a cold. Lovely. I wimped out of running last night because I couldn't breathe, but I'm hoping that a combination of soup, hot Ribena, drugs and an early night will have me fit enough to go for a run tomorrow evening!

DIY...

Yes, it's a lamp. No, I didn't make it myself! But I did get back after Christmas to find that it wasn't working. I changed the bulb, but nope, still nothing. I, of course, immediately went into 'Oh great, it's buggered! How am I going to get rid of a massive floor lamp? How am I going to cart another one home?' mode, but my mum suggested checking to see whether the plug had a fuse. It did! So I went and bought a pack of fuses, and (with a little help from Dad on the phone) I changed the fuse and hoorah, the lamp works!

New Year yumminess!

I made a puff pastry tart with caramelised onions, spinach, roasted tomatoes, courgettes and goat's cheese for the non-meat component of our New Year's Eve dinner. It was gorgeous!

Yet more lovely food!

My Somerset friends and I try to go out for a bit of a Christmas celebration, and this year the venue was the Mount Somerset Hotel. They were nice enough to give us a room all to ourselves, and as you can see we all enjoyed the food!

Merry Christmas!

A beautiful white one! I was lucky enough to get up just in time to see a gorgeous sunrise, and then I took a photo of the amazing sunny and snowy view on the way to our friends' house. And then there's my pile of presents - I was thoroughly spoilt!

Our Finnish Christmas Feast!

Having a Finn staying over Christmas means you get two Christmases! Yay! In Finland the big celebration is on Christmas Eve, and as we wanted to make my sister's chap feel at home we made sure we had lots of traditional fare. Smoked salmon, herring, Rosolli salad, baked ham, boiled potatoes and two special casseroles made from swede and carrot. It was amazing!

Ah, it's Christmas...

...crisps and wine? Yes please!

And just when we thought there was enough snow...

...yet more turned up and we were snowed in! Our house is on a hill, and we couldn't get the cars down the driveway, let alone tackling the snowy country lanes!

Snow, snow and more snow!

I have no idea how we all made it down to Somerset for Christmas. My sister and her boyfriend arrived just before the snow hit on the 17th, my dad's flight back from Germany was delayed and he ended up being on one of the last flights to actually get to Heathrow on the 18th and thankfully the trains were OK for me to get home on the 19th! And I arrived to a snowy winter wonderland, which was very festive indeed!

Oh. My. God.

That would be a bourbon chocolate pot with crème fraiche. I went to the Duke of Cambridge in Islington for lunch with a few friends - it's the UK's only fully organic gastropub, and while it is Yummy Mummy heaven and therefore packed with small children and enormous pushchairs, the food is incredible. I had half a baked camembert with bread and chutney, beetroot goulash with rice, a root vegetable coleslaw and garlic yogurt, and that amazing chocolate pot. I can't remember the last time I ate that much!

Frozen photos...

...from our Sunday walk around Emsworth. The pond was frozen!

Invasion of the Father Christmas hats...

A group of us try to get away for a weekend once a year around Christmas, and this year the festivities started slightly early! Those Father Christmas hats left fluff everywhere...!

Freezing...

...I think we had a top temperature of -2 today. We didn't really have any more snow, but the snow we've had over the last couple of days is still around, all iced over.

Footprints in the snow...

We finally had a half-decent covering of snow in west London overnight...before this we'd just had a pathetic sprinkling! We still haven't got anything like the snow other parts of the country have had, but at least ours is just about deep enough to leave footprints in now!

Joulukalenteri...

That's a Finnish advent calendar! I can't believe it's December already - although the weather's doing a pretty good job of reminding me!

Minus WHAT??

Yep, that's minus five. Brr. But look at the gorgeous festive snow-capped apples!

Let it snow, let it snow...!

It's funny - I started this blog with photos of sloe gin and snow, and now I've posted about sloe gin again and here I am with more photos of snow! We had an inch or so on Friday night down at my parents' house in Somerset, so we were greeted by a winter wonderland in the morning!

Further eggsperiments...

I'd seen silicone poach pods in Lakeland but thought they were a bit expensive at £5 for a pack of two - and then I saw them in Poundland (I'm so classy...) and obviously they were just £1 for two! So I bought some, and had a go at poaching an egg for my post-run supper. I think I started off with the hob on too low a heat, as the egg took forever to cook, but once I turned it up a bit it was fine. I put a lid on for about 30 seconds at the end, again to avoid any risk of runny egg white, and I ended up with a perfectly poached egg with a lovely runny yolk. Yum!

Baked eggs...

I'm really into tomatoey things at the moment - warming, slightly spicy tomatoey things packed with veg. Add a few chick peas and it's heaven on a plate! So this evening I decided to make baked eggs - I started off making a spicy ratatouille-type base with onion, courgette, aubergine, tomatoes, chick peas and some chilli and garlic. Then I put that into a warmed baking dish and cracked a couple of eggs in, and baked it all in the oven for about 20 minutes. The yolks were slightly overcooked - I could have taken it out maybe three or four minutes earlier - but I have a bit of an aversion to runny egg white and I didn't want to risk it! It was gorgeous, though - I'm absolutely stuffed and it's all good veg and protein!