....but you can never leave.

If someone asked me to describe this wonderful, life-changing experience which is blogging, I'd borrow from those great philosophers The Eagles and say it's a bit like the Hotel California - you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

2011 has been particularly horrible for a lot of reasons, some very close to home, others in a wider world context. Meanwhile in blogland, there were several moments over the past year when I seriously considered quitting blogging, one of the reasons being that I felt I wasn't delivering on the promises and (what turned out to be unreasonable) targets which I'd mentally set myself. And that's not what blogging should be about. It should be spontaneous, and fun, and all the things which resulted in me keeping three blogs going, as I still do.

The other problem was that it was impossible to keep EuropeCrazy topical and up to date, due to time constraints. A lot of blogging is about 'the now' and topicality is everything. Writing an album review a year after its release wouldn't exactly go down too well in music blogland, for example. So I had all these little unwritten posts in my head, but when the time came around to publish them, I just felt they weren't relevant anymore.

If you think all this is leading up to an "I've decided to quit blogging" announcement, well....it's not. Let's go back to The Eagles, because I'm going to check out for a while but have no intention of leaving. Because I love blogging, and I want to keep on doing it. I want to celebrate the 5th birthday of my first-born blog EuropeCrazy in March 2012. I want to take Planet Salem (which is 4 years old tomorrow) into its fifth year. And as long as there's food to eat and clothes to buy, there's a lot of life left in good ol' Random Ramblings too.

The big difference is that I'll be blogging a lot less than I used to, and won't be promising anything which I can't deliver. After the 2011-50 ends over at EuropeCrazy, I'm going to step away from the computer for a little while, however will still write the odd blog post. And that time will hopefully come when I've caught up with myself, when all the jobs are done, and I'll be ready to throw myself back into blogland with a vengeance.

Retail therapy (again, I know)

Off to Matalan with mum this afternoon, and what a very productive day it was for both of us: mum was very lucky to finally get the new pair of boots she was looking for, we got some Christmas wrapping paper, oh and I bought two new coats. Not one but two. A black one and a purple one.

Now I like coats, and I like purple coats, and there are probably not enough purple coats in the world so here is another one for my collection. Although it's probably more "grape" than purple I guess.

Boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan...

Made this, just over an hour ago - my first attempt at some speciality Irish cuisine...potato pancakes which are better known as boxty. It was OK, although my mashed potato to grated potato ratio needs some work as the end result was a bit soggy. Nevertheless I'm glad I tried it!

It'll be a while before I try it again though, as I'll need to sustain my good work on the diet front. I worked hard and lost 2lbs last week, which has probably been undone by the boxty :)

Like it!

Loving this new Aldi ad with the wine-loving parrot. Hope you "like it" too :)

Champiñones al Ajillo

I've been too busy to blog lately, so only just getting round to publishing this. It was actually a couple of weeks ago that I took the plunge into cooking one of my favourite tapas dishes at home. And rather yummy it was too, although the garlic aroma was circling around my house for several days afterwards :)