Happy New Year...

Sorry to be so belated with the blog -- after Christmas, I embarked upon a journey that involved so many snow-related delays that we ended up on a flight from London to New York that was diverted to Montreal at the last minute, then from Montreal to Chicago to Tampa to Miami. Thus began three days and two nights in assorted airports, all of which look, smell and sound spookily alike... But I know other people had even more frustrating delays, and the hours in various limbos sped up while I read John Le Carre's latest book ('Our Kind of Traitor') and 'A Week in December' by Sebastian Faulks; both of them big, dark, state-of-the-nation novels that felt somehow appropriate as narratives to accompany my jet-lagged zigzagging across time-zones and national frontiers.
Anyway, when I did get to New York, it was completely wonderful: we ate delicious food (downtown at the Little Owl and Barbuto in the West Village, uptown at the Mark); drank cocktails at the King Cole bar at the St Regis; and stayed in what is now my favourite ever hotel room, on the 39th floor of the Four Seasons, with a view over Manhattan and Central Park that made me very, very happy. Met the producer of the David Letterman show, and ascended to the heights of his office at the CBS tower (v. thrilling). Shopped for brilliant sale bargains at J.Crew (how I wish we had a London store, though you can get some of the range at net-a-porter), and bought the perfect pair of black velvet trousers and a soft tweedy black and cream cardigan (I like to think Mademoiselle Chanel would have approved of the latter, in the knowledge that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery).
Back in London again, facing the expanse of 2011. I've been clearing out cupboards and drawers -- trying to do at least one a day -- a task that I put off while working on Coco; and finding it both therapeutic and occasionally overwhelming.
Tiny shoots of green grape hyacinth stems are appearing in the back garden, though later than usual, and I fear the squirrels have eaten a great many of the tulip bulbs I planted last year. But now that the snow has melted, spring seems a little less distant than before, and I've been reminding myself that the days are lengthening, if only by a few minutes. I've sometimes struggled through Januaries in previous years, although this time (fingers crossed, wood touched), I'm feeling braver than before, and resolved not to wish the days away, but to embrace the month, as a time to potter and bake and nest, and make some plans and wishes as well...