Cheers to the year that was … part 2

Why hello there!

Feel like you missed half a year? Check it out here

July

Now didn’t I get spoilt for my birthday? I had a hot date night with TSH and Ricky Gervais! July also saw most others with our surname celebrate a birthday as well. It was the party month.

Our kitchen garden was complete and sparking so much joy, it was ridiculous. ‘Can we eat this?’ I would ask over and over again when I would find more things growing. We found out we had red berries, blackberries, gooseberries and quince, all without having to bat an eyelid. If it was nailed down, I would try to ferment it.

August

For most of July and August we were up north with our family, enjoying long days and endless light. I continued to work, but afternoons were filled with trips to the beach and BBQing.

When back in Stockers, I moved my office inside and gleefully ignored the unpacked boxes from the move.

I decided to get fit and started to shuffle. Not for long! Cue eye roll.

September

What a beautiful autumn it was! My favourite time of year. We explored our local nature reserve and held a spontaneous ‘after work’ up at the village playground.

We made slow progress with the state of our house, like installing a new invention called ‘lighting’ to our stairwell.

October

I stopped working, praise be! Without ever realising it, moving a family of five including a newborn half way around the world, then back again, at the same time having high-level work positions and then working from 3am, was actually quite stressful and tiring.

I’d been running on empty for so long, when I actually stopped running and had time to think, I worked out that I needed a very long nanna nap.

Everything came to a standstill, the house remained as is. The only thing that didn’t stop was me instagramming my quince and blackberries.

TSH kept his masterchef badge by introducing the household to sesame crusted Icelandic tuna with miso mayonnaise. Miso mayo = GAME CHANGER!

November

November plodded along as I began to relax and rest. The darkness began to consume me, I was missing homely terribly but had great support all round. I could almost hear the jingle of a sleigh bell, which kept my spirits above water.

I discovered the best grainfree bread recipe of my life, which could be put together in under 10. But the greatest joy was that I stopped taking photos of my quinces, and started actually making things with them.

Maggie Beer would have been proud. I felt like I was in the Barossa Valley, whipping up quince jelly, quince paste and rosemary and quince jam. Turns out, all you have to do is add a hell of a lot of sugar to them and boil the crap out of them. Delicious!

December

Our first white Christmas in four years. With all of its traditions and mulled warm wine, Sweden does put on a very spectacular Christmas period. I loved every minute of it!

I was a little concerned how the girls would take to all the new Santa traditions, like that you don’t leave your santa sack that your grandmother made you at the end of your bed and on the morning of the 25th, wake up to pure joy, that now on the 24th a goat appears with a gift, then you watch cartoons, then Santa arrives and hands out pressies in the early evening. There is no Santa in a firetruck and that it’s dark, most of the time whilst all this is happening.

They totally accepted the new Christmas traditions and our five-yr-old summed it up perfectly, ‘Mummy, I love ALL the Santas. The fake Santa’s, the real Santa’s, the Santa’s in the other world, and the Santa’s here’. NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT, Santa always wins.