Why is it that we always hail the New Year in the way that we do. We mark the passing of time, and the resetting of the calendar back to the start but is January 1st that much different to December 31st?

It makes more sense to me to mark the seasonal equinoxes and the turning of the seasons that brings about. I’m marking time until the weather improves a little more and I can return to the plot and plant new crops as well as tending to those that are overwintering.

I picked up this theme this year in one of my allotment presentations that I give on a regular basis. The talk is titled An Allotment Year, and it seems that I’m expected to talk about a calendar year, sometimes a seasonal year, but I break it down differently. Split into four I talk about: “Planning and Preparing”, “Sowing and Planting”, “Nurturing and Maintaining”, “Harvesting and Relaxing”. Once the audience gets the idea it seems to go down very well.

Nevertheless it is “New Year” again, and I’m not sure what is in front of me. I am going to try and get back into writing here a little more that I was the second half of last year, but I’m not clear in my mind what that looks like. I have a few family commitments which are likely to take up a lot of time and could dominate my life if I’m not careful and I’m unlikely to be talking much about them here. Otherwise the usual fare is likely along the lines of the allotment, cooking, natural history and related things.

In the meantime however I’ll leave you with a picture of the first of the batch of Christmas puddings I made towards the end of last year. It came out very well, if I do say so myself. If you want the recipe scroll down on the homepage, it should be just below this post or look at the posts for November 2018.

• 

•