Changes afoot at VV: an end of year review

It’s that time of year when it’s customary to look back over the previous twelve months and review the achievements and highlights, and think about New Year’s Resolutions, although I’ve tried to avoid this since writing about No Year’s Resolutions a few years ago – or, at least, if I did make a resolution I kept it to myself. Like many people, my resolutions are always the same: lose weight, get more exercise, start running, do yoga every day … I usually start well, but lapse by the middle of January; it’s so difficult establishing a new habit. In fact, the only habit I’ve managed to stick to all year has been my daily Calm app meditation, which is currently chalking up 418 uninterrupted days.

Resolutions aside, this year has seen some big changes. For a start, the Vivez Vegan website was just a vague idea this time last year. What started as a project to learn WordPress using an Udemy course has blossomed into a fully-fledged live website with over sixty individual articles on all aspects of French vegan life, plus two downloadable PDF guides. All totally free. It’s great to receive feedback and comments, like the email saying: “Your website put a smile on my face, I just love it! Thanks for putting all this great info together – it’s informative and a great support tool!” I think I’ve pretty much explored every aspect of vegan life in France – OK, maybe I did go on about the chasse a little too much – but I’ve signed up to keep the site running for another year. New for 2020 will be a recipe section, with traditional French recipes veganised.  

Alongside learning WordPress, writing or blogging has been a big feature of 2019. I made a (silent) resolution to post a blog per week on this Blogger personal blog, and with this final end-of-year review I’ve achieved this. Similarly, the Vivez Vegan website has seen a weekly (sometimes twice weekly) blog article, my business website has a monthly blog post and since July I’ve been blogging weekly for Twilight the retirement home for dogs, too. That all adds up to a lot of words, probably getting on for 100,000. Writing plans for next year? Just stick with it. Although there may be a reduction on the VV website, I’m still aiming for a weekly post on Blogger and for Twilight. And I’d like to get another book draft going – I’ve got an Udemy course for Kindle Desktop Publishing unfinished. I’ll have to see if the ‘muse’ is willing.

On the food front, no change – we’re still vegan. And, of course, 2019 was the year I cracked vegan baking. Bakewell tart is the family favourite and it went down well at the Twilight Open Day, too, though unfortunately we chose the hottest day of the year for it. There was no Twilight Christmas event this year, but I helped to run a Facebook pop-up shop and the online sales more than made up for it. The range of vegan food offerings in France has not really changed much since last year. In fact, at Intermarche in Chalus there is actually less stuff available than before, leading us to wonder if the manager has been ‘nobbled’ like the manager at Dun le Palestel whose store was blockaded by angry farmers after a OneVoice stall was allowed on the site. I must confess that after trips to Sweden and the UK, my French cooking mojo was somewhat sapped towards then end of the year.

But, changes are afoot, as I hinted last week. Team VV has returned to the UK; timescale as yet unknown. We’re staying at Mr VV’s parents’ and a good job too, as two days before Christmas his mother fell and broke her hip. This explains the lack of a write-up of our Christmas dinner. Yes, we did eat all the vegan food we’d bought on our supermarket spree, and it was excellent. But it was somewhat marred by events. However, she’s back home and on her feet again now. On the positive side, I’m looking forward to trying the huge range of vegan food available here, plus making our ‘annexe’ aka The Hut a minimalist, entirely vegan zone, with as many eco-friendly, no plastic habits as possible. I’ll be exploring all the recycling options, zero waste shops and vegan cafes in Colchester and, hopefully, joining some groups where we can meet some ‘real live’ vegans, too. There’s yoga every week in the village hall, so maybe this year will be the year that I finally crack the daily yoga resolution.