Welcome to 2011!

Happy New Year everybody! It seems that this years ‘thing’ is to have a photo montage of the past 12 months – I tried to choose one photo per month but found that was difficult as some months I’d taken more than others but here is my contribution – in no particular order!

2010 was a good year, we had three great holidays, I completed loads of crochet projects and I learnt to quilt – mostly self taught and through books but also with help from Nicola both remotely and in person! I haven’t blogged as much this year but I’m getting the impression that this is a natural progression from newbie blogger to feeling more comfortable with only the occasional update. 2010 also saw us become empty nesters as both boys left home which has taken some getting used to – as Son 2 has so recently left it’s something we’re still learning to cope with! In my mind I have a post prepared about what I miss about him – I’ll try to commit it to the keyboard in the next day or so!

Today we’re off to friends for our belated Christmas/New Year celebrations – before I go I just need to finish quilting my latest project so I can show them!

Here’s to another great year in Blogland – hope it’s a good one for all of you!

Happy New Year Everybody!!

I wanted to wait a day before I gave you my greetings for the New Year – it's like having a late Christmas pressie!

I have my aunt staying with me at the moment, that probably conjures up a vision of an old lady sitting in the corner but she is actually only eleven years older than me so we're more like sisters really. Having said that I did threaten to put her in the corner and cover her if she misbehaved (the image was of a bird in a cage letting off expletives and needing to be quietened!) her name is Judith but for my whole life I have only ever called her Dilly – something to do with 'Dilly Daydream' a nickname coined by my late granddad.

Dilly is single and lives alone and is not with the techno world, she likes to use the internet but doesn't have regular access. I've been trying to tell her about blogging. She wants to know what I write about – when I told her it's mainly drivel she failed to see the point! I explained that I have visitors from across the globe who read my drivel and leave comments. She still didn't get the point. Will I tell her that she's mentioned today – I don't know, I don't think she'll get the point.

My point in the paragraph above leads me to the point where I thank you all for sticking with me for the past seven months. Some of you I know in real life, others I know only virtually but I love you all! I love the fact that I can waste spend hours travelling the globe reading about your lives, if I'm honest most of my travelling takes me to the USA but it's a place I love and am happy to visit in person or just virtually. I think most of us bloggers follow the maxim of writing for ourselves, it's certainly made it easier for me by holding that belief.

Let me now tell you about my exciting year to date – and a little about the past few days. Son 1 has finally moved out – keeps popping home for the odd thing (like his underwear!) but he has essentially moved out. I left them for several days before visiting. I wanted to be invited. I don't want to be the sort of MIL who turns up out of the blue. I need to be wanted. The reason for that is deep rooted – I may share another time. Moving swiftly on, we visited on New Year's Eve – just a short visit. We took Dilly with us so that she could see their new home and I must say it looks lovely. Although it's very compact they have made it very homely and I think I feel more settled about it all now.

We had a quiet New Year's Eve. Son 2 hit the town and John, Dilly and I sat with the TV for the evening. We had the excitement of more snow which wasn't expected and caused concern because Dilly has a bit of a drive home – heaven forbid she'd get snowed in with us! I can proudly say that I stayed awake until 10.45, heard the fireworks at midnight but turned over and went straight back to sleep.

Yesterday I played hostess to the friend that I call Julie and our other friends Linda & John (you may remember we went on holiday in the summer with them). Unfortunately the frozen snow put a bit of a damper on things and they left a lot earlier that we would have anticipated but we had a lovely day. Mix and match lunch (dinner?) – I really couldn't contemplate a roast dinner so we had chilli, lasagne, duck pancakes wraps with plum sauce and chicken – strangely the duck went down the best! After lunch son 2 took Julie, Linda & I off to see son 1's flat although he was actually at work but FDIL played the perfect hostess. The roads around Ipswich were so icy and they live on a hill – picture the image of son 2 with two older women on his arms trying to keep them upright on the ice! Clever mother (who wasn't even offered an arm!) saw that the path close to the buildings were actually snow and ice free and just had to balance on the bit of road by the car!

After a cup of tea and a slice of Christmas cake, our visitors made their way back to Colchester in an effort to avoid the possible worsening weather. I offered to pack them up a picnic of what would have been their tea but they declined! Oh well, I'll start the diet next week then!

And that essentially is my year to date. I'm looking forward to 2010 for all sorts of reasons. More travelling (of course), work challenges (bites knuckles), more blogging (what would you expect) and adjusting to life in household of three instead of four (that may actually be the bigger challenge).

Happy New Year everybody – 2009 was a blast, bring on 2010!