I have a confession to make. 

It is unlikely to come as a surprise that I have failed at all but one of my New Year's resolutions.  Yippee, the satsuma peel mountain is gone. One down, sixty million resolutions to go.

If I'm completely honest I've not even achieved this myself, my husband cleared them away in disgust at the rotting food smell from the none door side of the bed.  He also tidied my floor wardrobe system on Monday, his interference with the system (clean, sort of clean, dirty but do-able, filthy) led me to wear a cream jumper to work on Tuesday with mustard down the front.  The evidence of mustard also exposed the burger eating session on Monday evening, blowing my New Year Temple Body intention wide open. 

I've also been forced to delete the Couch to 5k app from my phone due to its wanton taunting ("lazy cow, lazy cow, lazy cow, lazy cow" it sings to the tune of Blankety Blank).  In fairness the jogging was doomed the day I went shopping for fitness appropriate clothing and returned with a silk dressing gown and pom-pom pumps to wear as slippers.  I'm pretending, and I trust you will all enable this, that the exercise regime is merely postponed at the request of the unblinding optician who told me not to exercise for a month after my operation.  The fact I spat my coffee out laughing when he mentioned competitive sports betrays the lack of commitment I had to this resolution. I can also confess to a little school night drinking, but this was entirely in aid of scientific research to determine how my new technicolour vision mixed with alcohol.  Oh, and my make-up bag is still filthy. 

The upshot is that I have donned a hair shirt and have flagellated myself to Manchester and back.  I have cried tears, though not real ones for reasons of eye surgery, I have cried "intensive tears".  Artifiical tears sure as hell make my frequent tantrums easier and quicker to stage. 

The artifical teared flagellation has led to increased sherry consumption and culminated in a Saturday night spent with my best friend (let's call her Julia Child due to her voice when drunk, cooking wizardry and all round bon viveur-ness), dancing to country music, discussing the pros and cons of paper voodoo and planning new business ventures ("you can't find a business better than feeding humans to the polar bears").

So I've failed, can you smell the self-loathing from where you are? It has the distinct whiff of burning eyeball.  I'm finding the hair shirt a little itchy and insufferably dull.  So I've moved on to new, infinitely more pleasurable obsessions.

Now I know I'm late to the Nora Ephron game, but my oh my I am completely in love.  This means that I now have to read everything she has ever written.  EVERYTHING.  This is not new and has been previously done with Mitford, Hustvedt, Atkinson and Wesley.  At the moment nothing else exists apart from Ephron.  Nothing.  I simultaneously want to be her, meet her and follow her around wearing dark glasses, trench coat and dodgy wig (a dark brown bob, in case you were wondering).  My Ephron infatuation does not leave spare time for trifles such as cleansing, exercising or disinfecting my make-up bag.  Ephron The Enabler is reinforcing my domestic sluttery.  She also allows me to lounge elegantly in my new silk dressing gown, sherry glass and book in hand. Good for her.

I am double-dropping my new fixations this week. I decided last year that we have done fairy cakes (fairy cakes not cupcakes mind, I have never ever made a cupcake) to death.  We have edible glittered, jewelled and pearlised.  We are bored.  Or at least I am bored.  So this Christmas friends and family have dutifully turned up with vintage jelly moulds after some highly indiscreet covetous blogging. 

Julia Child upstaged them all, her gift of jelly book nearly made me weep with joy unconfined.  Look it's beautiful. 

The best bit is that, according Bompas and Parr (my new gelatin gods), if I stick to my new jelly-hobby I will be allowed to call myself a jellymonger and culinary deviant.  This culinary deviant (in training) aims to make marvels like this. Wobbletastic.

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