Happy New Year!

Bonne année! Hope you had a splendid time celebrating the arrival of Twenty Ten. Andre and I headed back over the Pennines to spend the NYE holiday with my parents - cue large amounts of red wine, intense scrabble and hearts tournaments, and plenty of country walks with the dogs.

On arrival back in Manchester, I took our Christmas tree down. It had been up for about three weeks, and was looking a little droopy - the dogs kept hitting their fluffy heads on the lowest branches and baubles as they scampered past.

However, I will keep our beautiful twiggy garland on the door for a while longer - and our Advent tree is still in place. I moved it through to the kitchen from the living room cos we needed the dining room table for various festive meals (including Traditional Christmas Lobster - recipe coming up in a future post).

You can read more about our Advent Tree tradition here. And here are some photos I took yesterday of the branch in all its glory - it looked lovely in the sun, with the ornaments casting pretty silhouettes against the scarlet kitchen cabinets:

Are your Christmas decorations still in place? Or have you taken them down and packed them safely away until next year?

Most people are blogging at the moment about New Year resolutions. I'm not going to do this, for the simple (and admittedly slightly bizarre) reason that I don’t make New Year resolutions in January. I make my resolutions in September, which despite the fact that I haven’t stepped into a classroom in over ten years, is the month that I still associate irrevocably with new beginnings – shiny new tin pencil cases, freshly sharpened pencils, pristine exercise books. January to me feels like a month for hunkering down, conserving, taking stock – but September is the time for a fresh slate. It’s also my birthday at the start of September, so it’s literally a new year for me. 

Thank you for reading! See you again soon, I hope :-)

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Want To See The Christmas Gifts I Gave This Year?

I had a glorious time finding Christmas gifts for my family this year. Here are some of the presents I chose:

Journal by Amanda Ross featuring her botanical designs printed onto fabric. I purchased the journal, along with some notecards and lavender-scented silk sachets, from the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair, which you can read more about here:

Coasters from The Perfect Gift Shop on Etsy - I emailed four photos from our summer holiday in Provence to the designer, Allison Bridges, and she printed them onto travertine:

Poppy dish and red heart vessels from Elizabeth Prince (I blogged about Elizabeth's work in this earlier post):

Blossom lamp from Hannah Nunn (you can see one of Hannah's lamps in situ on my mirrored chest of drawers here):

Perpetual Paris calendar from Little Brown Pen (who was awesome enough to arrange special postage to the UK):

Japanese puzzle box from Hawkins Bazaar - it took Andre about half an hour to get into it, but he said it was worth it to find these cufflinks by Colette Hazelwood inside:

Silver necklace by Franny and Filer - bought in the awesome Manchester Craft Centre:

Vintage letterpress blocks by Home and Glory from Not On The High Street:

Everything seemed well received by the intended recipients :-) so it was defnitely worth the effort involved in both finding these gifts, and then wrapping them elaborately in paper, hessian, lace and twine.

Would you like to receive one of these gifts? What was your favourite gift that you gave (or received) this year?

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Recipe For The Perfect Roast Turkey

Here's a recipe for the most delicious roast turkey. The steps are simple.

1. Drive across the Pennines on Christmas Eve to your parents' house in Yorkshire:

2. Commence celebrations on Christmas Day morning:

3. Take assorted family dogs for a long, snowy, country walk in the afternoon:

4. Return home to find your awesome Mum pulling this out of the oven:

Oh yes. This has to be the best recipe ever for roast turkey. Loving it.

Happy Christmas everyone!

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