Welcome to the New Year

And so the year 2010 dawned at Much Malarkey Manor. Unfortunately, I was unconscious and didn't realise it had arrived until I surfaced this morning at 7 am.

Now, I want you to know that this wasn't because I was a drunk. I don't drink, as you know (although I did partake of a glass of Buck's Fizz with last night's celebratory dinner. I knocked it back pretty much in one hit, figuring that if I did that, I wouldn't have to taste it.)

No, it was because I had been up since the crack of New Year's Eve dawn, faffing about with one thing and another. I'm an early bird, you see, and come 9 pm, Mr Sandman is placing sandbags on my eyelids, and bloomin' heavy they are sometimes.

The day culminated with my cooking of a celebratory dejeuner a deux for me and Andy. I had originally planned to cook quail, but in the absence of said bird at the butchers, I was forced to settle for poussin. I ccoked them Italian style, with potato batons, baby onions and mushrooms, with caramelised carrots and a rather nice shredded ham sauce. And for pudding I made a firm, if unsophisticated favourite - apple crumble.

Have you ever had poussin? They are tiny chicken. So you get to have a WHOLE bird to yourself. Part of me thikns it looks a bit sad, a whole tiny chicken sitting on your plate. But I think Andy appreciated the whole concept of being able to demolish an entire fowl by oneself. Anyway, by the time we'd finished our meal, we were both stuffed and I was struggling to saty awake.

And with nothing stimulating enough on the telly to encourage wakefulness, I said an early au revoir to 2009, and went up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire ( as my Mum used to say.)

And what of 2010? So far, it has been very promising. Lovely, sharp and icy, sunny weather. Lots of activity in the brain department (planning a set of drama lessons to teach to the 100 eleven year old who are passing through my portals next week), and in the physical fitness department (Wii Fit Plussing and getting very narky with an evil looking mole that kept popping my balloons - don't ask). The chickens are happy; they all laid an egg today. The house is tidy; New Year's Day is my day for denuding the place of its Christmas vestments.

And I have a set of cunningly chosen resolutions because I am an optimist and I like a challenge. Sadly, I failed in my resolution for 2009, which was to do the splits. I might be an inch or two closer to the ground than I was this time last year, thanks to all the walking and swimming I managed to do, but I think my hip sockets are too creaky to push them too far at this moment. Still, never say never, eh?

This is what I'm hoping to achieve in 2010:

1) have piano lessons and learn to play a tune with more than one hand that isn't 'Chopsticks.'
2) have a go at bell ringing. Apparently, bell ringers are in short supply and as I come from a family of bell ringers (well, several of my family are bats! Aha!) I thought I'd have a go myself
3) see if I can come up with 4 subjects to study so I can enter Mastermind. I've got one so far, which is the life and times of Oliver Postgate. Three more to go and I can put in my entry form for the big black chair!

And I think that will do for the moment.

And if you have chosen to face a challenge yourself in 2010, be it personal of something more global, then I wish you well in your endeavours and a happy and successful outcome.