Joyeux Annee Nouvelle

So, have you all survived Xmas okay? We have been reading our Xmas books -- I'm posting reviews on my LiveJournal. We've been for healthy scenic yomps: around the local parks and cemetery on Xmas Day, down along the Lea to Walthamstow Marsh on Boxing Day (because the reservoirs were closed); around Walthamstow Reservoirs the day after Boxing Day -- lots of assorted ducks, geese, swans, herons, cormorants, great and little grebes and a flash of kingfisher. Around the Tottenham Hale retail park after the Lea/Reservoirs walks. Walked to Wood Green Shopping City yesterday, and back home again after satisfactory looting expedition. I've managed swims about every other day. Joseph assembled a woodcraft renewable energy project -- watermill and windmill kits, photos of which he says he'll post up here. I'm putting a new (moss green) lining in a crimson wool overcoats that came from Mum's magic store: simpler than you'd think -- the old lining provides the template for cutting the new pieces. And of course, we are eating lavishly and watching telly. Prevailing weather is clear and v. cold: about 2C daytime maximum, with patches of frost and ice lasting all through the day in the shadows.