I know, I know, we’re eight days into February and I’m only now doing my January catch-up post, but hey ho and all that.
My mother always says, “if you can’t say anything nice, Joanne, talk about the weather,” but even that has been dire. We’ve had a lot of rain since Christmas and the humidity in January was off the scale.
I don’t think I’m the only one who got to the end of January and decided that February was going to be the new January. I’m already feeling cooked. Granted, I worked through the Christmas break and didn’t take any time other than the public holidays and I’ve had an office relocation to project manage since then. But even people who have come back from holidays are feeling the same. Again, hey ho.
Anyways, without further ado, here’s the catch-up.
Travel
Speaking of both office relocations and my mother, I hopped on a plane and flew to Sydney. Originally I was going down to spend the weekend with my parents, then manage the office relocation, before celebrating Mum’s 80th the following weekend.
Covid, however, had plans with other family members, so the party was cancelled, I cancelled Grant and Sarah’s flights and I came home early.
On the upside:
- I got to spend time with my parents who I hadn’t seen in a long while
- The office move went as well as these things tend to go
- I came home covid free
- I managed to score some rapid antigen tests (RAT). (If you live in Queensland – or, in fact, pretty much anywhere on the eastern seaboard, you’d know just how valuable and highly sought after these things are.
Also, because Sarah and Grant and I had taken annual leave days in order to fly home from Sydney, we treated ourselves to a day away from teh office and lunch at Sunshine Beach Surf Club. (That’s Grant’s taco in the pic below.)
Watching
Definitely not the tennis. I’ve really never been able to get into tennis – I think it’s because there’s no defined beginning or end time to the games and who wants to start watching a game at 7pm only for it to finish at midnight? Hello, I have a 4.30am alarm! Having said that, I do believe that Wimbledon – the romcom – is one of the most underrated movies out there and I watch it whenever it’s on.
What I have been watching is (and before you say something about how much television I watch, this is also December – I just forgot what was on when):
- The second series of All Creatures Great and Small (on Britbox, but the first is now on ABCTV)
- The second series of Queens of Mystery (Acorn)
- Great British Bake-off and now Great Australian Bake-off (Foxtel). As an aside, there’s going to be Great British Bake-off The Musical. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
- Under The Vines (Acorn)
Reading
You’ll need to tune into What’s On Your Bookshelf for more details here (Friday Feb 18…this is your reminder if you want to link up), but here’s a preview:
Writing and Blogging
I’ll have another episode of Writer’s Digest out at the end of this week, but this one and this post will keep you going until then.
In terms of blogging, in January I wrote:
- Something about my word of the year.
- The January episode of What’s on Your Plate was a most unseasonal beef casserole with parsley dumplings – and a sneak peek at my new book.
- In What’s On Your Bookshelf I wrapped up the reading year that was 2021.
- And stayed focused on my word of the year with this post.
Cooking
Not as much as I’d like, although I did manage a January instalment of the Kitchen Diaries here.
In addition to that, in book club we cooked Parkin, and I tried my hand at double baked cheese souffles. The pic below is what they looked like when they came out of the oven the first time.
Okay, that was January and we’re all caught up! How was your month?
And Anyways... 
It’s never too late to do a monthly wrap up Jo! I can’t believe we are 8 days into February already. Those tacos look delicious and with a lovely view would have made an enjoyable lunch away from the office. I adored The Shelley Bay Women’s Swimming Circle and have become a Sophie Green fan. I also love that meme about Sydney house prices and RAT Tests (it is very close to the truth!). So pleased you could spend some time with your Mum and Dad as I know it has been ages since you’ve seen them in person. Have a lovely February my friend and I look forward to more link ups with you and your monthly wrap up post. x
January was a tad under par here too, I’m hoping that February will be a big improvement! So sad to hear your folks’ party got cancelled but pleased you got to spend some quality time with them and then with Grant and Sarah – silver linings and all that! Of course the biggest win is your RAT tests! Score! Drooling over your cooking and looking longfully at your book covers, I’ve had little time to either read or cook in January, hope to get my mojo back in February! It was great catching up!
Our month flew by in a wet, cold, snowy blur. What a delicious looking lunch with a view.
As a result of January, I’m so ready for spring! I enjoyed your “catch up” post!
You are torturing me with those photos of the Caramelized Orange Cheesecake… I won’t get to taste one again until my birthday next January (unless I can convince my husband to make me one for Valentines Day).
That book title “A Girl Walks Into a Book” reminds me of a very funny satire series we just watched on Netflix (I think) called “The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window.” It was a wonderful mash-up of all those “A Women…” “The Girl…”, etc. books and movies.
Great wrap-up, Jo! My January was good but a tad long (quite long actually). However, February is already flying past at breakneck speed! I’m okay with this though because it simply brings me that much closer to Spring! 😀
This was a great catch up Jo, and I am starting Girl walks into a book any day now, I’ve read The Last Garden In England and am reserving the Sophie Green books from the library as we speak, have heard such good things about them.
I always get hungry looking at your posts Jo! I reckon I could eat one of those cheese souffles! Yum. Bonus to spend some time with your parents. So glad you could, not as glad about reasons why your Mum’s 80th was postponed. And what is that saying “all work and no play”??? I hope you can self-care your way to more of that soon. Thank you for sharing Your blog post linked for #LifeThisWeek. I look forward to seeing you again when you next link up! Warm wishes. Denyse.
Oh no! I missed this post – but better late than never. Sorry about your mum’s birthday party being cancelled – covid just sucks the joy out of everything these days! Your cheese souffle thingies look good and I’d have nabbed one at the ‘once baked’ stage to do a taste test. Hope you’re on top of all the work stress and that life is cruising along a little more gently these days – I can highly recommend early retirement!