shewhomust | The year's first...

On Sunday, I baked the first loaf of the year
: using the hazelnut flour I bought at the organic supermarket on the outskirts of Dinan. The first time I tried this, the result was disappointing: heavy, and not as nutty as I'd hoped. So I've mostly been using the flour in fruit crumbles, where it works very well. Now, very near the bottom of the bag, I took the last chance to try a hazelnut loaf, cutting back on the proportion of nut flour, and adding a handful each of dried cranberries and chopped hazelnuts. This made a very sticky dough, but it was just about manageable with a spoonful or so of (hazelnut) oil, and since the wetter dough tends to rise better, I let it be. The result is still heavy, but the more open texture actually brings out the flavour of hazelnut, and it's very tasty - less is more, for once. Though not when it comes to greasing the tin: there wasn't quite enough butter left on the wrapper, and the loaf refused to come out (when I eventually chivvied it out, there was a long corner of crust left in the tin).
Yesterday we went swimming for first time this year
: later than I would have liked. Later in the year, because we have both had a lingering cough (yes, the second of the winter) and decided to skip last week; later in the day because there is a sweet spot in the afternoon before the after-school cohort arrive, and we caught some but not all of it - I didn't complete my 40 lengths because I got caught up in a ball game. Also because I was beginning to cough again. I feel better for even that incomplete swim, but this morning we are both coughing more.
My timing was off yesterday afternoon
: because I set up the ironing board to watch Countdown for the first time of the year, and discovered it had been replaced by darts. For the first time but won't be the last.
I have bought the first book of the year:
: Clockwork Boys by the fabulous tkingfisher, an actual dead-tree book! Hooray!
durham_rambler is at his first meeting of the year -
: we actually set the alarm this morning (first in quite a while) so he could get out of the house for nine o' clock. And since these things never come singly, there's another meeting this evening.