Busy week

Birthday Marmaladoo

Snowdrops papped in a Pewley Way drive

And James got creative in Steamer Trading

It's been a very busy week. So busy, I missed pottery and Illustration Friday, but well worth all the cooking and cleaning for the great weekend spent with Becky and Paul. But last week between entertaining, the cinema, general house stuff, and a lovely Valentine's meal, I managed to take in the first whiffs of spring whilst walking with Merry. Unfortunately the snowdrops I snapped above whilst crouching in someones drive, looked like they'd already been got at by the slugs.

As well as this, my lovely friend Beth came over and we made birthday marmalade for my mum, with Saville oranges being in season and all over the supermarket. It was a perfect afternoon spent chatting and cutting up orange peel, and after six hours hard at it, we'd made 10 jars. We used a recipe found on Nigella's website, and although the method is slightly unusual, boiling the whole fruit first, the result was brilliant and the newly named Marmaladoo has been a huge success, in our house anyway.

As part of my brilliant year, I've made the list I promised to do a couple of weeks ago, and I'm marking off the successes, or failures, as they happen (see my blog, right). The list is laughably unambitious and lists stuff I've never got round to doing, but being totally achievable I might actually get them done. Pilates and now marmalade making - boxes ticked! But I couldn't find a tick on blogger, so a strikethrough will have to do.