Birthday

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday. It was a sunny day and we walked into town first to decorate a family plate which was fun and then to have lunch at the Almanack in town which has a great menu and is very child friendly. I had gorgeous moroccan lamb pie (light pastry) and shared a hazelnut parfait for dessert.

Decorating the plate at The Crazy Kiln

Later we had dinner at home followed by cake and bubbly and lovely gifts including flowers from my old schoolfriend Linda.
It seems incredible that another year has gone by and I'm sure only old people are this great age!

Is It All Gone?

Martha is just checking in case there is any lunch left! She loves her food and we haven't found anything that she doesn't like so far...I'm sure that we will go through different phases of eating in future though!

Reading

I am trying this year to get more reading done - have failed miserably so far by only reading a handful. I'm on Goodreads but can't seem to put finger to keyboard to update it very often.

So far...

Anne Enright, The Gathering
Tom Barrett's motivational books - Dare to Dream, Work to Win and Success Happens
Helen Dunmore A Spell of Winter
Genesis study chapters 1-18
Cecelia Ahern The Gift
Donna Tartt The Secret History - just started.

On the waiting list....

Philippa Gregory The Virgin Queen
Andrea Levy The Long Song
Jenny Ditzler Your Best Year Yet
Margaret Atwood The Year of the Flood
Greg Mortenson Three Cups of Tea

I've also emailed our local bookshop to try to join their book group. It seems small which is appealing but it meets on a Wednesday night which is not the best for us but I am keen to try it out so I will see what happens.

Wee Sleekit Cowerin' Timorous Beasties

We celebrated Burns Night with haggis, neeps, tatties and whisky cream sauce. Was very good haggis.
That's it for another year now.

Tea Jenny

I can barely have a cup now without Martha reaching out to have some
With Daddy

Lovely flowers

We were given some lovely flowers from church and we were also given a tub of hyacinths at Christmas which were gorgeous. Am just waiting hopefully for my amaryllis to bloom now!

Phoenix Conference

Rosie came to stay for the Phoenix Conference in Kettering. It was such an inspirational day.
I bought Tom Barrett's books and have been reading them avidly.
This January business has been the best ever!! The pressure is on to make sure every month this year is the best ever business-wise!