Something old, something new

My darling and I have never been much in the habit of buying gifts for each other. Not at Christmas at any rate. And for birthdays it's more like 'I'd quite like this...' and 'I could get you that...' and we're sorted.

So this year, as I have for the other 19 Christmases I've survived enjoyed with my partner I have splashed out and bought exactly what I wanted for Christmas. And paid for it.

Last Christmas I was very much into food. I'd just claimed a place on the work calendar with a recipe, and received an invite to a delightful degustation event in Auckland as a reward. Oh, yeah. It was all happening.

For many years I'd been looking at a wonderful flavouring package from Sosa which featured almost every flavour known to man (or to me, anyway.)

Truffles, black and white. Strawberry, green and red. Bread flavouring. Biscotti flavouring. Green apple, red apple, cooked apple. All in a beautiful cedar case, with an instruction and information guide so you could locate the number of the flavour sought without having to paw over two shelves of little bottles.

It was quite a moment when it arrived. I pulled out random bottles, opened them, and sniffed them in a gastronomic heaven. I was going to use them for so many things. Testing out new flavour pairings, flavouring chocolate, ??? Okay, mainly just flavouring chocolate.

A year later my box of flavours is still fairly much pristine. I grew sick of making bon bons, and the only time I tried to test a flavour pairing before embarking on a new meal I made the mistake of sticking out my tongue and tasting the flavour pairing too. Not recommended. Flavours are quite different on a cardboard testing strip than they are diluted with white chocolate or a cream sauce.

I still pull the shelves out sometimes and select a tiny wee bottle or two for a nice sniff, but the usefulness I envisaged prior to purchase never eventuated after.

So this year I've gone in for something that will be of no use whatsoever, unless you consider the decoration of ears useful.

Eeuw no - don't be sick! I'm talking about earrings for goodness sake!

I now have in my possession (early but it's hard to judge with international parcels at Christmas time) a pair of Georgian earrings. They are beautiful. Garnet and gold, with a small lead repair on the top of one of the fittings. The hooks themselves are a later addition, thinner than my Victorian earrings so presumably more modern also.

There's an absurd pleasure in wearing an item of jewellery that someone else originally wore two hundred years ago.

But Christmas is a long holiday, so there's another gift winging its way to me. This time brand spanking new. A ring with cute little bear ears, one of which has a punk earring in it. It sounds more complicated than it is. I've ordered it in rose gold to match the old georgian rose gold of my earrings.

Now I just need to borrow something blue and I could drag my darling to the registry office!

Leading up to the final night of bloggering there's another toofer on offer for your blog-reading pleasure. First up are the lovely folks at Undercover Book Reviews, and following close on their heels is the salt of the earth peep at Welcome to My World of Dreams.

Neither of the blogs is up and operational at the moment because we like to keep you all in suspense, but check them out later and we should be up and running.