A new year

I like this time of the year: all the pandemonium around Christmas is over, Canberra goes very quiet, the politicians are all on holidays, and plenty of time for reading and relaxing because there's nothing to distract us on TV. Highlights of the last week included:

• receiving a bit over 2 inches of rain over Christmas (my hydrangeas all looked very happy).
  

• shopping with my Christmas gift book voucher at the Boxing Day sales. As well as "Lovely Bones" I couldn't resist buying "Cupcakes" produced from the Primrose Bakery & Cafe at Primrose Hill in London (there's another bakery at Covent Garden now too).
  
  I made my first batch of chocolate cupcakes for New Year's Eve. They were extremely delicious as you would expect with $10.00 worth of Lindt 70% cocoa butter chocolate in them.
  
  

• celebrating New Year's Eve with my friend Irene, her David (and Rhys) and their lovely friends at their beautiful new house being built by David at O'Connor. David was very clever to capture the brilliant new moon (but not the blue one) in this shot of us in the first few minutes of 2010.
  
  



• making more cupcakes (These carrot cupcakes with orange cream cheese icing were even more delicious than the New Year's Eve cupcakes.)
  

• welcoming Ella, Josh and Jody back from their week away at Narooma and then Coogee. They all look so relaxed, happy and healthy.
  

• sharing the neighbourhood with this mother and son/daughter kangaroo. I think they have taken up residence in the patch of bush over the road from us as I have seen them on quite a few occasions lately. One morning I went outside (still half asleep) to collect the newspaper and got a huge shock when I looked up and saw mother kangaroo staring at me, barely 4 - 5 meters away across the road.
  

I took this pic this morning from our driveway and both mother and son(?) were quite unconcerned.