The scarf is almost finished, thanks to Lady Deathwatch I have an idea on a shrug to start, it looks simple enough for even me to complete in a timely fashion, i.e. for when the warm weather well and truly starts here in my part of the world.

As most people are aware it's December, yes it's that time of year again. Good will to all mankind and all that other baloney. Bah! Is all I have to say to that. Bah!

However despite saying that, I have been putting the carols on, flicking through my ever growing pile of Christmas magazines and books, it grows every year.
As much as I despise this time of year, as much as I loathe it with every fibre of my being, I can not resist the opportunity for cooking too much food.
Food is just one of my major obsessions, of which I have many, long time readers will be familiar with my others.
New to this year's menus, I tried Christmas Chocolate Biscuits, Cranberry and White Chocolate Cookies both from the new Nigella Christmas. And at long last I made the Maple Pepper Pecans from Nigella Express. One minor substitution I swapped out the cayenne for paprika in the pecans to road test them at that level, and I'm really not sure how other people feel about really hot things.
But they've passed my Mother's test, she was sampling them in the kitchen while no one was looking.

There's still a whole plethora of things from Nigella Christmas I'm keen to try and a number of them have made it onto lists, the Cranberry Studded Mincemeat (after the Vanilla Rhubarb mincemeat from Feast was vetoed by my mother, not enough people in the family can eat rhubarb, the fact I like it is beside the point) and Christmas Wreaths look like goers.
But the tried and tested Apricot and Almond White Christmas is back again this year, I love both apricots and almonds, and well I like some White Christmas, it's kind of like fruit cake, it can be hard to find a good one.

A reliable source (my Mother, so always right) informs me Nigella's Express was on the ABC last night! I missed it but with any luck my father has recorded it, we think last night was the first episode. I'm hoping so, I have been eagerly anticipating this series, I have seen little snippets courtesy of You Tube.