My aims for 2013...

I hope you all had a good Christmas, ours was a nice quiet family affair, everyone was pleased with their gifts 

and we had a very scrumptious breakfast of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on philly toast topped with bacon and fried mushrooms

followed later in the day with a delicious Christmas dinner, but I somehow forgot to eat my Christmas pudding (I'm the only one that likes it!) so it is languishing in the back of the cupboard at the moment!

The weather after Christmas was appalling here in Chelmsford, it did nothing but rain for days on end, so there were lots of pyjama days staying cosy and warm indoors. 

New years day was a completely different kettle of fish we woke to wonderful blue skies and sunshine, although it was a trifle cold!!

The boys have been hard at work in the garden, tidying one of the dogs kennel. We sadly lost our last Dogue de Bordeaux, Ozzie, a couple of weeks before Christmas, and although Paul said he wouldn't get another big dog, a friend of ours has recently had a litter from a stud dog that we bred, so I think there may be a new addition to the family if the work on the kennel is anything to go by!

Did you all enjoy new years eve? Ours again was another quiet affair, the boys went to bed and Rachel and I stayed up to watch Big Ben and the fireworks. We've never been that big on new years eve, I think its from too many years in the police working nights on new years eve!!! Paul read somewhere that only 1 in 5 people actually go out to celebrate, did you?

With the new year arriving there is a lot of talk about resolutions, I'm not big on new year resolutions, but I do have some long term aims for 2013.......

the first is to get healthier, I found this book in a local charity book shop for £1

 and thought I'd give it a read, which I did on new years eve. It had lots of useful information and I have already started on my new exercise regime. We have several pieces of gym equipment in the garage, including my butt buster, as we like to call it, it's a vibration plate we bought earlier this year and it hasn't had much use lately so I'm back on it again. We also have a rowing machine, a bike,  a cross trainer and a sauna which I am going to make use of every other day. We already eat quite healthily but I do have a sweet tooth and tend to get a bit peckish in the evenings so I will be cutting down on the late night snacks and sweets. One thing I really need to do is to drink more water I know I don't drink nearly enough and would rather have a cup of tea but it seems I should be drinking at least 8 glasses a day, just need to get some limes now to make it a bit more interesting!!!

my other aim for 2013 is to learn to knit properly, I was lucky enough to win this book over on Joy's blog, 

and although I know the basics I've never knitted much more than a scarf before. Hopefully I will be sharing my newly mastered knitting skills with you as I work through the book.

I finally took the rest of the Christmas decorations down today, I normally wait the full 12 days but just felt like I needed to get them cleared away and although the conservatory feels a little bare it is lovely to have it all clutter free again!!! Here a snapshot of my decorations on the stairs before I took them down......

I've really enjoyed reading all about your celebrations, your Christmas makes and your aims for the coming year, I have lots of makes to show over the next few days and one final cracker swap to share too.