My first blog post of 2010, so can I wish you all a very Happy New Year, filled with peace, love and greyhounds.

We had a nice start to the New Year with a lovely Sunday lunch on the 3rd, hosting friends Paula and Penny. Paula is still going through her radiotherapy, so didn't feel like eating much, but it was fabulous to see her and we really appreciated her making the effort to join us and be sociable. Penny traversed the frozen wastes to get to us, and couldn;t stay as long as she wanted, as she needed to get back to the farm, but again, it was fab to see her and enjoy ourselves, nattering and catching up. We made a pumpkin and ricotta lasagne, reindeer shaped cheese biscuits and a spicy pudding, one of those ones that looks like a cowpat when you put it in the oven but you end up with a lovely sponge sitting on top of a rich gooey sauce.

We were also able to give Penny her surprise Christmas present, which was a quilt I had made for her. It is only a small lap quilt, but I thought she would like it on the rare occasions she sits down on the sofa to watch the racing on TV, and can snuggle her feet and legs under it. I'm sure she won't mind me saying her farmhouse is very, very old and does have a few draughts, so I'm sure it will come in useful. We also gave her a pot of home made cranberry chutney -not yet ready to eat, but the most lovely colour. I have attached some pics of the quilt - as you can see, Boola was on the sofa while Andrew photographed it, doing his usual chilled out thing. The fabrics were a Moda charm pack (called something like Kansas Winter) and the sashing was a Moda Scrap Bag which just seemed to work nicely with the colours. On the back I made a central panel using some of the leftover charms, some other Moda fabric and two side panels I picked out at Busy Bees. I quilted in the ditch once it was basted - nothing fancy and used the reverse of the quilt to make the binding, simply folding it over and doing a double seam. The quilt block I used was one I discovered on the Moda site - basically you make a 9 patch block, then cut it into four equal quarters, which are then spun round and resewn, giving each quarter an assortment of large and small squares and rectangles. It was a nice block to do, and I think I might do something similar again. Between the blocks, I just put in some sashing and then two borders round the edges, once made up, of the scrap bag strips. Fortunately, Penny was thrilled with it, and even more happily, she had just (unbeknown to me) taken delivery of a beige sofa, which has a red throw over it to help lurcher-proofing. The colours of the quilt will work really well with it.

Since Sunday, we, like most of the country have been struggling with some rather exciting weather - well, exciting for the UK, anyway. Most other European countries would be amazed that we grind to a halt following a light sprinkling of snow, but I feel this is a national characteristic that has been honed over many years, and we should be proud of our inability to cope with or enjoy anything other than damp drizzle. Andrew is due on a training course in Birmingham on Friday, but this is looking doubtful.

Brightening up the evenings this week has been a Lynda La Plante murder mystery on ITV. We almost never watch ITV and I am not a big La Plante fan normally, (with the wonderful exception of Prime Suspect) but this had Cieran Hinds (apologies to him for missing the accent in his name), currently my favourite eye candy. I may have written before about his Captain Wentworth in Persuasion, a beautifully executed adaptation of one of my favourite novels, and I also enjoyed him recently in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (again, another wonderful book, which I cannot recommend highly enough). I realise that if he is going to choose quality literary adaptations on a regular basis, he can't go far wrong - the La Plante however was the usual slickly done police procedural with the standard cliches of the hard hearted senior officer who barks at his staff (but is really a sweetie underneath) and a ludicrously overdone posh family of villains with suitable loyal, aged retainers. Maybe it is a feature of my own middle age (45 very soon!!!) but I just cannot get excited about younger men (well, obviously the exception being dear Andrew). I should also stress that I am not looking for any real excitement - but in terms of visual enjoyment I do prefer a man who looks as though he's lived a bit. Other contenders would be Jean Reno or Alan Rickman (mainly for his voice, admittedly) - I'm sure you get the picture.