Last day of the Year

The last of the year, I feel strangely calm, after all it is just another day.  The past new years eves I have scurried around like a mad woman - house has to be clean, the new year has to start how I want it to go on. Can't have a dirty house or an unfilled larder.  The lawn needs mowing badly, the little rain we have had over the past few days has greened everything up and the lawn is coming back to life.  It will get done I am not stressing over it.  My house is tidy, the christmas things all packed away.  Life goes on wether the cobwebs are there or not.  The spiders are taking advantage of my lethargy and are busy in the bathroom with their silvery threads.
I suppose my N.Y.R. will be, I have decided, to just do everything in my time, no one elses.  No stressing out over anything.  I have learnt a few lessons this year, I didn't quite trust my gut feelings, refused to listen to the voice of reason, but I learnt from it which is the main thing and came out of it a little wiser but a little poorer.
So looking forward to this bright new year I will calmly re-evaluate my situation, the house needs work doing to it. Do I sell up and buy a small unit in town or do I carry on here and do the work when I can afford it.  Do I get stuck into the craft room, open an Etsy shop, trawl around all the crafty type shops in the area, do I finally get to do the Visual Arts course I've always wanted to do.  So many resolutions I could make. Do this, do that, not do this, not do that. Soooo..........my resolution will be - NO STRESS, NO WORRIES, JUST BE. 

I don't have pretty pictures of a shabby chic house, or wonderful mouthwatering cupcakes and biscuits, but I do have lots of views from the area I live in.  Scruffy and his friend come up every morning after the kookaburras have eaten, ready for their breakfast they wait patiently.  When I stayed at the retreat and went for my strolls around the garden overlooking the river out they would pop from no-where - all of us getting a shock at seeing each other there.  When we meditated they would come up close to see what we were doing, feeling their curious eyes on you.

ooooooarh, I told a porky.  Here we are - Eccles Cakes, one of the very few cake like recipes that I can do quite well.  After a nostalgic trip down memory lane (one of my favourite place to go) a friend and I decided we would search out the recipe for them. Luckily in my book collection I had an 1940's Good Housekeeping book that had just the recipe we needed. People are still raving about them and begging us to make more.  Ooooops - I've just remembered what that digusting lump of something was when I cleared out the cupboards - left over dried fruit from the last batch of Eccles cakes I made, which was, now let me see, could it have been way back in March when I made the last lot. 

One thing you don't want to do when you are quietly strolling along enjoying the view is to step on one of these things.  When they are freaked out and scared the first thing they do is run up the nearest straight thing.  I hid straight away behind my sis in law and she promptly went behind our friend.  But Mr. Big Lizard just slowly sauntered across our path, gave us a couldn't care less look and slowly made his ascent up the nearest tree.