I was vegetarian for all of 2015 apart from a couple of mistakes; some gelatine in a jelly a friend made for me, some fish sauce in a Thai vegetable curry and some chips cooked in beef fat.  I think that was it.  I tried to be vegan too but had many failures but I would think that on balance, I ate far more vegan meals than non vegan.  The areas I struggled with were cheese, butter, chocolate, cakes and biscuits.  But I am confident I can now do without those too.  There are many vegan cakes and biscuits available which are very tasty and I must not allow myself any chocolate (the dark stuff doesn’t tempt me, I like milk chocolate).  I ate butter and cheese over Christmas and I didn’t like it anywhere near as much as I remembered.  It seemed greasy and fatty so I think I can go without them too.  So my intention for 2016 is to be:

This is the favourite picture from this years batch of Christmas cards – thanks Michelle for the card.  So yes, from now I intend to be 100% vegan.  Well, I have 2 qualifiers for that statement:

1. I will eat vegan but not fully adopt the vegan lifestyle.  I am sure I will move to that eventually but for now I am not willing/able to throw out my leather shoes, sofa, car seats etc but when they cease to be functional/useful, I will replace them with non animal derived equivalents.
2. Honey.  I completely and totally accept why vegans do not consume any animal products except for honey.  My sister-in-law, Anne, gave me some home produced honey for Christmas.  Honey made by the bees she keeps in her garden in Balham which I think is really cool (a. that she makes honey and b. that it is from a small urban garden in London) and I am going to enjoy it.  When she collects the honey from one hive, she moves the bees to another hive and so on, back and forth they go.  I don’t see the harm in that so I am going to enjoy my Balham honey.

I had a very late night, courtesy of Marion and Colin who threw another memorable party to welcome in the new year.  Thank you very much to my wonderful neighbours and everyone I enjoyed chatting to and singing along with; it was a good ending to what has not been one of my favourite years.  I staggered home at about 3am and when I woke up, it seemed to me that the best thing I could do would be to rehydrate and nourish myself.

I wanted a green juice so I picked some kale from the garden; it’s wet from frost or rain.I grow 2 types of kale and used some of each for a broader range of nutrients.
I really fancied some citrus in my juice. Plus apples and green grapes. That made made 1.25 litres of juice. Yummy.The juice kept me going until the afternoon when I needed a quick snack so I made some guacamole and mashed it onto 2 slices of homemade wholemeal bread.  I like making my own bread as I can be sure it is vegan.

I was too hungry to toast the bread and enjoyed it as it was.Supper was made up of leftovers.  Sone roasted onions, potatoes and sweet potatoes from Christmas Eve and some of the veggie chilli I made and took along to the NYE party – the “farty bean thing” as Marion described it when we were allocated dishes to bring along 🙂 Filling and comforting and sufficiently tasty.

So, the first day of 2016 has been a success on the eating as a vegan front.  I didn’t manage a walk though but was busy tidying Christmas away so I have actually walked 7,800 steps which isn’t bad.

Happy New Year to you all.