After the September/October overdue recap, it’s time for a wintery November/December overdue recap! After that, I’ve got a few photos to share from our Helsinki adventures, and then I’ll be all caught up on blog posts and we can go full steam ahead into the end of January.
Christmas Dos and Blood Donations
Writing this recap makes me feel old, because I can barely remember what I got up to in November and December. Jeez, Emma, that was a whole YEAR ago. I can’t remember that far back!
I gave blood, which I am historically absolutely terrible at. I started out with no fear of needles and a lot of eagerness to donate. This is my seventh time donating (fourth for the NHS), and only the second time it’s succeeded for me instead of going wrong in horrible and guilt-inducing ways. Now I am somewhat cautious around needles and felt a buzzing ‘am I going to fail at this again’ anxiety for the whole day of the donation, but hey, I did it anyway!
It looks like my iron supplements are doing their job, so here’s to many more successful donations.
December was Christmas Party season, including the work do (where I was too sozzled to post any photos up here) and my first-ever Derby Team Christmas Do (where I was sober, so you get photos).
I GOT A CERTIFICATE! It was really wonderful and kind and I still get emotional looking at it and looking at my happy elf-eared face on the day. I mentioned this already in my 2017 best-of post, but hey, it was awesome enough to get posted here twice.
Winter Means Comfort Food!
Dave got drunk and made corndogs, while I ensured nothing caught fire. They turned out surprisingly (and deliciously) well given that none of us have ever seen a real corndog. No idea how authentic they were, but they were great. Sober-Dave kept up an excellent noodle-bowl making game, and pulled together some excellent soft tacos.
I’m not a huge fan of cooking, but I do enjoy making veggie-heavy meals. I had fun making a new egg recipe called shakshuka: eggs poached in tomatos with lots of spinach cooked in.
The true love of my life is hot drinks, so I spent a bit of time mastering my pumpkin spice latte recipe to get the layers right at home. Mission success, I reckon.
I also tred out hot chocolates of all stripes and fell in love with the Singaporean powder mix Nestle Milo, which makes great hot chocolates and amazing ‘Milo Dinosaur’ milkshakes.
Oh, and we had gingerbread pancakes at the small-ish Scottish chain restaurant The Pancake Place. They were AMAZING.
And Comfort Movies!
The new Star Wars movie came out in December! And it was fantastic! It’s themes around failure really hit a chord for me, and Kameron Hurley’s blog summed it up pretty nicely. I really, really enjoyed it and want to watch it many more times.
But a surprise favourite of the month was YOUR NAME: an animated movie about two young teenagers who keep swapping lives. Your Name is beautifully animated with a really unexpected depth. It’s difficult to talk about without spoiling story elements but it’s free to watch on Amazon Prime so please watch it if you get the chance!
Aside from that, December was a pretty quiet month: writing, eating good food, spending time with the family. And you remember how in the last post I wanted to spend more of September catching up on beta reading? I did it! Success!
I had a few nice treks in the woods, too. The colours were really beautiful! It was great to get out there before the ice crept in and made it all too treacherous.
What did you get up to over winter? Is anyone else already struggling to remember that far back? It feels like so long ago!