“New Years Eve is a kind of witching hour.
Like a time within a time. The in-between. The moments between flashes. The pause between seconds”.
(I began to write this post last night – I was waxing lyrical).
“It is eve of a new year. 2024 is coming. I am half way through a bottle of champagne. It is snowing. Our John is out babysitting his grandchildren (total respect – they are a handful – he has timed his arrival to be after their bedtime) and the snow has begun to come down even harder.
I finished writing HERE at 3pm – set The Letter to publish at 5pm Central Illinois – the time of day I publish all my Letters. (And all the TKG TAKE TEN videos). And still the snow falls – like fading light. with infintesimal changes from green to white.
This year I am going to allow myself a few moments of poetry every now and then.
Just for the sheer joy of words.”
(Then I watched a movie on my laptop – for a special treat).
Here is my make-up free last of the year self portrait. My eyes seem more green than blue lately. Does eye colour change as we grow older?
Going into Dry January.
Me and Mr Flowers.
I have been looking forward to dry January actually. Though the bottle of bubbly given to me for my birthday went down very well last night.
Here is my latest Sunday Letter from The Kitchens Garden Farm. (The Letters only come out once a week – have you signed up yet?) I have collected a selection of my favourite farm photos of the year. They took ages to choose so there are more than I anticipated! 🤭 It was a quiet year on the farm but we fed a lot of people and the light was lovely.
Though I worry that we are not getting enough sun days.
How about you?
Did you have a lovely evening?
Happy New Year!
2024 – here we come!
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
44 responses to “It was New Years Eve”
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year straight back ‘atcha! Have fun!
The Happiest of Happy New Years to you Celi and the entire Fellowship of the Farmy!!! Look out 2024, here we come!!! Sending love out to all!!!
And sending love straight back to you!!
I am doing Dry January too. The first year was a success, the others that followed were partials. This year I would like to succeed 100% and cannot think of a single reason why I can’t. Only that I can. Happy happy New Year!
I did it last year and it was great!! In fact I think I went for a bit longer. It is easy for me because I never go out!
Not so easy for me as I tend to enjoy my drinks home alone. Usually over dinner.
Me too. If I did not drink alone I would never drink at all!! We can do it together! I am planning all kind of bubbly water drinks. I do love bubbles!
Oh me too Celi. I wish we were closer!
I LOVE this Chris, “This year I would like to succeed 100% and cannot think of a single reason why I can’t. Only that I can.” I am adopting this way of thinking too!!! Happy New Year!!!
Oops, just figured out what a dry January means, no bubbly or anything related to it! 🙂 I must still say I love Chris’ sentiment “This year I would like to succeed 100% and cannot think of a single reason why I can’t. Only that I can.” And it can apply to everything one does!!! XO
Yes! No bubbly either! Don’t tempt me!! 😂🤣
And a Happy New Year to you too!!
Happy New Year!
I had bright blue eyes as a child, but they are grey now.
We are bleaching from the inside out! 😳🤭
😱
Your eyes look green here to me. They will change according to what you wear and often as to how you are feeling. They do change as we get older and become quite luminous just before passing. Especially blue eyes. Most eyes have many colors in them. They fascinate me. Happy New Year to you and yours. I think it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
There may be some bumps – but we are used to that- right? We can ride right over them. I wish you warmth, travels and love.
Happy new year, c, and may all good things come your way.
And for you too! All good things!
What? You had snow? Just a few flurries here. I’m not a bubbly person ~ I enjoy a nice smooth cabernet sauvignon!!
Love the piggies here!! Where’s my Boo! Did he celebrate by the woodstove!! For me it was quietly on the couch with a few sips of wine n fell asleep!! Didn’t even see any fireworks on TV!!
Wishing you a good year Celi!!
A few sips of wine on the couch sounds marvelous! I was in bed by 9!! I wish a better for you too Carol!! The snow petered out to nothing. Looks more like frozen drizzle than anything now.
Happy New Year!!! I hope that it’s a happy, healthy, prosperous one for all the Fellowship and their family and friends.
I had blue eyes when I was younger but they’ve gone gray. doesn’t matter as long as they work right.
God yes!! Our Johns have not changed colour but they are not too good at all. Hopefully this last op will have cleared things up a bit.
I did Dry January last year and it was much easier than I expected. This year, I’m doing Dry Feb which is a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society. If I’m going to do it, I might as well do some good!
What a lovely idea! Going dry for cancer. I do like a glass of wine each evening so it is the habit that trips me up. I find I do really well if I have a really nice bubbly water and juice planned. Pineapple juice is my fav at the moment.
Sending best wishes for a Happy New Year Celi (and here’s to there being far less bumps in the road in 2024, yeah?)
🤗😘🥳Deb
Oh yes. I need to be surrounded in healthy mobile people very quickly. There are just so many I can carry about! But some of the bumps turned into blessings.
I think you have gorgeous “opal eyes” – many tints & a bit translucent & lots of light. I still have hazel eyes I think with bits of green& orange in with brownish, like good garden earth. You also used to have masses of curls. No curly wisps now….My favorite wine these days is your delicious New Zealand Sauvignon blanc. I just love it & being ancient of days will stick with it right through looong, cooold, daaark January. I have done dry months in the past, usually after flu, during pregnancy, or meds, etc. & once for 2 whole years just for I forget why now. I like bubbly too very much & wines with a bit of petillance like vinho verde. I have a couple of Christmas bottles of beaujolais nouveau which I don’t want to get too much older, so…Cheers! Happy New Year & lots of love to You All on the Farmy & in the Fellowship. Health & Happiness. Maintain & Sustain & Refrain if you will…
I love that you have such a beautiful selection ahead of you! And yes! I love the Sauvignon Blanc – I have never met one I did not like!! I am happy to sit in the wagon for a while. I can feel my body needing a break from alcohol and all the chemicals some of these wines have in them. Just a little break, mind. I am NOT quitting! I have been meaning to do a ‘deep dive’ into the organic wines. Have you tried any?
I almost missed this post. Sometimes WP likes to hide things I think. At least Substack is reliable. We had mist and fog last night and the locals shooting off rockets all evening and then silence just before 12. I think they were celebrating other time zones across the world and then just gave up on our clock turning over! I do not think my eyes are changing, just other parts of me morphing into crone-hood, which I fully embrace. I will believe that there is also wisdom in those changes that may benefit someone in some way.
Happy New Year C!
Fireworks are a horror! At least we don’t get those out here in the country. and yes! I have no problem at all with being 64 now. And quite delightfully I read something the other day, I wrote it when I was 50 – saying I did not mind getting older – well sister – 50 was not old!!😂
Those are definitely green eyes at the moment, water green rather than grass or leaf or earthy green, but then, you are a child of the sea. Bravo for doing Dry January. My choices are reduced by diabetes; I do 12 dry months a year and it is, can I just say, *extremely* tedious. I’m with you on the bubbles; I like my fizzy water with a slice of lime and a dash of fresh passionfruit juice if I’m celebrating. Have a better 2024, dear girl, may you continue to do good in the world.
Happy New Year to you and yours as well. Your year-end Substack post sums up 2023 nicely… I feel momentum building for 2024.
It is building! This is going to be an interesting year!!
I get a free pass on dry January this year because the last half of November and much of December were dry for me after knee surgery. At first it was because of the opiods (ugh) from knee surgery and then I found I kind of liked it. The holidays have gotten me back to my beloved wine, but not as much and not as often. And I’m seeking balance in my alcohol consumption. But I’ll be cheering you on!
Balance is indeed key. I am not good at that sometimes. But first I need to flush my body. No alcohol. Then after two weeks no coffee either – then after three no sugar too. By the end of the month I am bright eyed and bushy tailed, flat bellied and sleeping like a baby! A good baby. 🐥
You can take away my alcohol. And you can take away my sugar. But you can never, ever, in a hundred million years take away my coffee!!!!
And despite the previous sentence, I’m looking for balance, too. It’s lovely when I find it. (I’m not always good at it, either.)
Same!!