New Year:

I very rarely make New Year’s resolutions, but this year I did. I have so many unfinished cross-stitch projects lying about that I really must do something about it.

So I decided to finish up all existing projects and always have one major project for the year. This year’s project is this evenweave ballerina, which I found and fell in love with on Amazon a little while ago. Isn’t she lovely? I still have to complete various flowers, birds, a Nefertiti design, a large Flower Fairy, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier… the list goes on. Probably I have enough unfinished stuff lying around to last me well into 2013!

Gardening:

This year I’ve decided to expand my garden borders slightly and begin to mix vegetables in with the flowers. I’m waiting for seeds to get me started – Romanesco Cauliflower and Red Cabbage – and will be very excited to see brassica heads and other yummies peeking out from underneath my Bleeding Hearts and Earthwalker Sunflowers. I always sow French Marigolds for colour too, but this year they will also be “sacrificial flowers” to keep the slugs away from the edibles. I have plans to sow out more Silver Dust as well, as the clumps I already have in my borders didn’t die over the winter months and still look stunning. Candytuft and Nemesia are also a must-have for me every year, and I think this is the year that I need to sow out some more Forget-Me-Nots (they’re bi-annual and it would be nice to have at least one clump growing every year).

I still don’t really know what to put in the huge gap left in one border from removing the Eucalyptus bush that I bought when it was a sapling – we didn’t realise that it was going to become six foot high and try to bury its roots underneath our house!

Sad news:

It would appear that 2011 hadn’t finished with being horrible to my friends, family and loved ones before Big Ben told it to go away. A couple of days ago I found out that one of my best friends lost her mother to cancer right after Christmas.  Her mother had so many other physical and psychological issues that nobody noticed the cancer until it was far too late. There’s not a lot I can do as my friend lives a fair distance from me, but I’m sending her some of my pickles and also some seeds to help her start a memorial patch somewhere in her garden. She thanked me, but I really don’t want thanking. My mother survived cancer when hers didn’t and so she has something missing from her life forever – something that I still have. Nothing I can do will ever bring her Mum back, or replace her, and that’s the true tragedy. She has also requested that people donate to the Macmillan Nurses, rather than send funeral flowers, and I shall happily do this for her.

Health and future:

My health is taking a turn for the better! The Hunger Fairy visited over Christmas and has never really left, and so I’m already gaining a few pounds and feeling more energetic. This means that we are thinking of making our wedding plans concrete if this trend continues, and I certainly aim to get myself fit and healthy to tackle all the garden projects that I’ve set myself!

“What’s with the picture of the inhaler?” I hear you ask. Well, alongside the epilepsy and the autism and the atopic syndrome and the exzema and the sinus issues… I have asthma. I was diagnosed at age 11, then when I was 30 it became completely dormant. However, I gave up smoking two-and-a-half years ago and last year I began to experience chest pains, and later I developed a constant barking cough which wouldn’t go away. At first it was thought to be viral in nature, then it was thought to be allergies. Eventually my doctor asked the right questions (mostly after discovering that I’m atopic) and *BOOM* - I was back on Becotide and Ventolin (pictured) again. It is a known fact that smoking represses asthma; on the other hand it wouldn’t be so bad now if I’d never smoked at all. Losing battle either way, dammit.

At least I’ll be able to get in the garden this year, even if Tribble still has to shut all the doors and windows for me when he’s mowing the lawn – which is a shame because I love the smell of mown grass.

And no; the recurrance of the asthma isn’t enough to make me want to start smoking again. I like smelling and tasting things too much, and when I gave up on my son’s 13th birthday I promised him that it was for good. One thing I could never do is break a promise to either of the most important men in my life.

In other news, I think I can write my pickled eggs off as, well… a write-off. I’m sure they’re probably fine, but they’ve turned an incredibly stomach-churning medium brown. Probably it’s just the vinegar, but I don’t want to eat them!