Wedneday Hodgepodge 27/1/16

Wednesday's Hodgepodge is brought to us courtesy of Joyce at 

 From this side of the pond

Pop over there to see other posts and if you want to join in add the link to your Hodgepodge blog post to the Linky List at the end of Joyce's post and don’t forget to visit at least your neighbours on the list.

Have fun!

Well I'm posting a couple of days late - you'll see why in my answers.  It's been a difficult week but I really want to keep my blogging going.

1. Share a winter memory from your childhood. 

Getting washed in a tin bath in front of the gas fire in the back room because the bathroom was so cold.
2. What was on your blog this time last year? (Besides the Hodgepodge of course!) If you weren't blogging, what in the world were you doing with all that free time?
There were only 3 entries during the whole of last January and that was pre Hodgepodge. (I came across the Hodgepodge when taking part in the A-Z Challenge.)  I had good intentions but life, in the form of job stress and subsequent resignation and ill health got in the way.
3. Ellen Goodman is quoted as saying, 'We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for potential.'

Do you see more flaws or more potential in your life at the start of a new year? Have you done anything specific this month to address either one? Does the new year truly begin for you on January 1, or is there some other month of the year that feels like a fresh start and new beginning?

Definitely more potential this year.  In a very different place than this time last year.  January is always a good time to take stock but I resolved before the new year to try and stop procrastinating and “Just do it” and I’m trying to stick to that.

4. Who's an athlete you admire or respect and why?

Steven Redgrave the Olympic rower.  To achieve what he did, coping with diabetes, took an enormous amount of dedication and determination.  And now he continues to work through sport to bring about change in the lives of young people with disabilities or disadvantages.
5. Do you like cream in your coffee? Whipped cream on your pumpkin pie? Cream cheese on a bagel? Sour cream on a baked potato? Cream of wheat for breakfast? Have you ever had a scone with clotted cream? Of all the creamy foods mentioned, which one sounds most appealing to you right this very minute?

No coffee for me and not a great fan of sour cream but clotted cream on a scone?  Pile it high and don’t forget the jam! 
6. Where were you last kept waiting for 'hours on end'? Or for what felt like hours on end? How well did you cope? 

Unfortunately that was last week during the final hours before my Mother-in-law passed away.  We spent all day at her bedside having been called in early in the morning.  She hung on until the following morning.  But we coped because all her eight children, myself and the other daughter-in-law were there.
7. Believe it or not, when next week's Hodgepodge rolls around it will be February. Huh?!? Bid adieu here to January in seven words or less.

We will never forget January 2016.  RIP Maureen.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

At times of loss family is so important.  I’m so glad I married into mine.

PS It's been a sad week but this wasn't a sudden or tragic death and Maureen leaves a wonderful legacy of a large but close knit family.  See here for more info.