Lately...

TRAVELLING to a freezing cold and snowy York at the weekend. We had a lovely time wandering the streets, buying secondhand books and clothes, eating amazing vegan food, drinking cheap cider and looking at trains in the Railway Museum (this last one somewhat more lovely for The Boy than for me). Sadly, the walls were closed due to frost and ice, so I think a return visit is in order some time soon.

GETTING the best gift ever from my step-mum, who was getting rid of some old crockery and wondered if I'd be interested. I was sceptical until I opened the box to find a perfect condition Meakin coffee set! The jug has already been repurposed into a vase for some early season tulips. Also, the most exciting post ever: a parcel of books from the Curtis Brown Book Group. I've already finished one and still have three to go... better get reading.

TRYING to keep my 2015 goal of swimming and walking more. I've not really managed the walking (apart from many miles of pavement pounded in York at the weekend) but I've been swimming twice a week for the past few weeks and am really enjoying it. It is playing havoc with my dyed red hair though, so any advice on keeping up both my hair colour and my swimming schedule would be gratefully received!

COOKING some exciting vegan meals (vegan fish and chips anyone?), the recipes of which we really need to get up onto The Hungry Vegan. But with T busy with exam marking and me in the midst of back-to-school chaos, it's not been easy finding the time to blog.

PACKING up my Blogger Snail Mail parcel (a few weeks late - oops!) to send to Kezzie. It's one of three swaps I'm doing at the moment, and it's been nice to continue the gift-buying and -making into January for a change.

DRINKING the addictively delicious Belvoir raspberry cordial with soda water.

EATING some amazing meals at Goji and El Piano in York - I can heartily recommend them both for veggie and vegan food.

MAKING many many zippered pouches. To my shame, I'd never sewn a zip until last week, so now I've figured out how (and realised how easy it is) I'm making all the pouches: purses, pencil cases, make-up bags. I sort-of-winged it and sort-of followed this tutorial from Martha Stewart. It's been nice to spend some time in the craft room and has reminded me how much I like making stuff.

BUYING yet more books: I found four books I'd been looking for, including a beautiful Penguin Classics edition of a Jeeves & Wooster novel, for the princely sum of £2 each from the local secondhand bookshop, and then I picked up a few more in York from the lovely Little Apple Books (with a Christmas book token so I haven't broken the spending ban, don't worry). I've otherwise been pretty good at not spending much, although my winter coat has just given up the ghost with both a broken zip and a huge rip in the arm, so I may need to splash the cash to replace it.

SEEING lots of friends for meals, which has been great fun if rather hard on the wallet. But January is so grim that I feel justified in spending some cash on catching up with mates for evenings of good food, a few drinks, and lots of laughter.

FEELING tired: very very tired. I'm almost completely better now - apart from trouble with my voice at work - but am still feeling like I could sleep 12 hours a night if I had the chance! Any evening not spent out with friends has been spent in my pyjamas, hibernating on the sofa and watching bad TV.