New Year

January the first, a start of a new year, a time for plans, promises, principles and memories. Today is the birthday of some one we lost too soon last year, some one loved and respected and in his memory we will light a candle and raise a toast later tonight. We won't forget you and miss you dearly.

Back to the daily grind of commuting and work tomorrow and I have to admit that I don't relish the idea much at all, I have enjoyed the freedom of being away and the 'downtime' of Christmas. A quiet week in which to potter about, read and knit to my heart's content with no demands other than what to eat or drink, bliss. I'm keeping my New Year resolutions simple but one will be to try to retain this inner calm. The budget themed thrifty Christmas has worked well, no vast amounts of unwanted calories have been consumed and no waste food left. A slight surplus of eggs were used up making a panettone using a recipe from the Guardian's Dan Lepard. This was surprisingly easy with an impressive end result. In addition, he includes a recipe to use the leftover egg whites, which is so useful, so as well as panettone, we now have a tin full of nutty cookies, so much for any new year diet!

Panettone

Brutti ma buoni, almond and hazelnut cookies made using the leftover egg white.

Thriftiness has been observed in other aspects of Christmas too. I wrapped presents in newspaper with recycled Christmas card tags, my Dad made us a Christmas tree from various bits of wood saved from his nature conservation work and I used all my odds and ends of wool to make an advent calendar, although I didn't get to actually finish this until three days before Christmas. 

Dad's homemade Christmas tree

Advent calendar

So lets see whether we can keep this up over the next 12 months! Wishing everyone good health and happiness for 2013 x