Art to start the year, in search of regional produce, and finding a word for 2024

I hope you've been enjoying the end of the year and the start of a new one. While I'm not one for a big celebration, we did stay up to watch the fireworks, but mostly it's just been good to have a week off. And I've quickly filled that week with fun things!

🍎 We visited Ye Olde Apple Shed for some local apples, then stopped at a local brewery for a tasting paddle accompanied by a selection of local cheeses. We were lucky to get the last box of our favourite cherries nearby. (We'd usually pick our own, but the summer storms have damaged local orchards and so we missed out this season.) Other food fun included trying out a couple of recipes from the cookbook I received for Christmas, Salamati, including feta truffles (for Friday Night Nibbles) and saffron baked fish.

🍇 For the long weekend, we went to stay in the Clare Valley at a cottage on a rural property. It was a peaceful spot with views of fields, trees and flowers, fantastic for relaxing, reading and playing games. As well as visiting some cellar doors, we went out for lunch in a region with no shortage of great food (this time a rabbit ravioli and beetroot risotto).

🥥 We played lots of games, including the sheep farming board game Squatter (because of the country location). We also played the Monty Python version of Monopoly, Pythonopoly, where the Migrating Coconuts square proved crucial.

📚 I managed to finish one more book for my 2023 reading challenge. Although I didn't reach my target, I still finished 23 books (which apparently puts me in the top 25% of readers on Goodreads, according to the platform) and I started more than I finished. In 2024 I'm going for a much more modest target.

🌲 I finished the year in my 2023 creativity diary by doing the last creative prompt (a colouring activity, in my case paired with an audiobook) and opened my new art calendar, which had a picture I've long liked for 1 January (and looking up the picture led me to a video about similar paintings from a 2023 exhibition). Starting my new calendar and diary, I've been pondering a word for the year: nourish.

Like unfinished annual goals (including reading challenges), I'm not sure how well the word of the year idea has lasted for me before, but thinking about what I need at the moment prompted the idea of nourishment. Maybe it will become a theme for my writing this year, or maybe not. Either way, I wish you a nourishing year of fun things in 2024.