Happy 2008

I am a dedicated New Year Scrooge and had committed myself to being well asleep by midnight tonight, after a lovely leisurely afternoon and supper with similarly minded friends (or if not similarly minded, at least sufficiently exhausted by pregnancy and newborn respectively to appreciate an early night). My neighbours, however, are equally dedicated party animals -- and I'm not quite Scroogey enough to resent a New Year's Eve party, so here I am awake, and making blogging my first act of the year.

My long absence since that last jammy post on December 11 can be put down to a combination of children's entertainment, holiday brain and frenzied last minute gift-making, including more additional pots of jam than I can count at this point. Suffice it to say I got through seven kilograms of sugar, gave two varieties of jam to everyone and still have seven jars left in the cupboard to gloat over. I also did a lot of crochet-y and sewing-y things all of which I neglected to photograph in the rush, so they're rather blurry in my memory at this point. The holiday brain doesn't help. In South Africa, for those not in the know, we have four public holidays between December 16 and January 1, with the Western Cape throwing in January 2 for good measure. All this at the height of summer, so more or less everyone shuts up shop and heads for the hills. Or beaches, mostly. It's silly season with an extra twist of lemon and a party hat on top (American readers are encouraged to imagine Christmas and Thanksgiving falling within ten days of each other in July).

So anyway, that's where I've been: out, or in the pool. Insert spacey relaxed sort of smile here. More to come when we head to the beach ourselves for the rest of the week, and then I suppose sometime after that I will have to tidy my desk, pay the bills which I know are lurking in there under piles of discarded wrapping paper and children's drawings, and get some sort of work going. In the meantime, Happy 2008!