Monthly Archives: January 2015

I picked up a copy of Clarissa Dickson Wright’s A History of English Food recently. I’ve always had a lot of time for Clarissa, having come across her first as one of the Fat Ladies and subsequently on other food programmes. She struck me as very knowledgeable about animal husbandry and history, as well as food preparation. She was also refreshingly unpretentious, unlike so many TV cooks, and totally devoid of fluffiness, always a plus point as far as I am concerned.

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Way back at the beginning of the month, I made some res…er…to-do lists and as part of this list promised a monthly review on my progress. Now we are in the final week of the month, I’ve decided it is time to see how it’s all going. So is all good or a total disaster going the way of most January resolutions to-do lists? See for yourself. Here’s how I’ve got on so far:

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I haven’t got off to a roaring start on my resolution  to-do list item regarding writing more, at least not as far as this blog is concerned, though after the daily Advent calendar posts, I imagine that’s something of a relief. I am doing rather better on most of the rest of the list though and will be posting an update about that soon 🙂

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We went to see the Gothic Exhibition at the British Library on the last Friday of the Christmas hols – myself and the sprogs with my US cousin and his son, who were over for a couple weeks. I love a bit of Gothery and if you do too and want to catch the exhibition, you’d best be quick as it finishes in a couple of weeks. Gothic was nicely summed up by a Victorian poster (below), which has moonlight, bats, a swooning heroine and lurking terrors.

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I don’t really do New Year resolutions. It just seems like a good way to set yourself up for failure and disappointment. All the usual ones about losing weight, exercising more, drinking less and generally being healthier are usually just a distant memory by February. That said, I do have some things that I want to do this year, so here they are in black and white as a reminder/target/measurable achievement, in short, a to-do list. Since New Year’s Day turned out to be a bit of a pyjama and movie day, I thought I’d squeeze in some list making as well 🙂

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