Post Christmas blue(berry scone)s

Seasons greetings to all! We are now in the period of the year where, if your household is anything like ours, you will be barely moving apart from the well trodden path between the sofa and the kitchen. Secretly, you will already be planning the health kick to end all health kicks on which you plan to embark at one minute past midnight on January 1st. And then you remember that you’ll have a fridge full of NYE leftovers at that point so best hold off until you return to work.

Today is my birthday. Most of the year, I dislike having a birthday so close to Christmas but, I must admit, there is something nice about having an event to look forward to post Boxing Day if only to punctuate the naps. I woke to the smell of blueberry scones in the oven - there are few better smells than home baking and, I might almost suggest that it beats the more commonly evoked scent of bacon frying into second place. But I digress. Behold these beauties which were sweet and buttery and perfect with a cup of tea. They were an almost exact replica of the old Starbucks berry scones that I used to adore back in the day and which the bastards saw fit to stop producing (in the U.K. at least).

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Christmas dinner? Our duck legs were as delicious as ever (I don’t really understand why we only tend to cook them once a year). And D’s last minute brainwave of making shredded duck and black pudding bonbons, very lightly flavoured with Chinese five spice, was a genius addition.

We were due to spend Boxing Day eating a Christmas dinner proper with my parents. And, indeed, D managed it. But I took to bed mid afternoon with a stomach like a washing machine - a potent combo of my gnarly digestive system in uproar about the surfeit of rich food and drink that I had dared to subject it to, and that wonderful monthly visitor that makes it such a pleasure to be female. I am rather sad about this, although 24 hours of barely eating seems to have calmed things down slightly and my Mum did package up some turkey and sausage-meat for me to enjoy a traditional post-Christmas sandwich. Hopefully, it will be sorted out early in the New Year (the gnarly digestive system rather than the being female bit) at which point I might buy a turkey breast and offer to cook them a not-Christmas dinner in recompense.

That aside, it has been a lovely festive season and I have once again been reminded of how lucky and blessed I am. A blog is a funny thing - even one which is ostensibly about dieting and food will often come to be treated as a sort of confessional and that means the focus here might be skewed towards the less positive aspects of my life. This year, like all years, has brought its issues and struggles but also its gifts and it will be the memory of these latter that will endure.