Have A Groovy 2025 People!

I woke up just after 6 a.m today to begin my meat husbandry for the New Year's Day roast shoulder of pork. I stuck to my usual recipe of a dry spice mix including star anise, fennel seeds, cinnamon, cloves and black peppercorns mixed into a paste made of garlic, fresh ginger, chilli flakes, brown sugar, soy sauce and sunflower oil but this time also added a tablespoon of black treacle after I'd seen an image of a fellow blipper's ham lathered in it. Once the meat had been rubbed all over with this concoction it was time to put it in the oven to slow roast for six hours.
Then I could sit and relax with a coffee and my new book as any further prep could wait for a couple of hours but eventually I managed to rouse myself and went out for a run in the drizzle with my brother.
Once we'd completed the veg prep for later we still had time to fit in a New Year's Day pint at the King & Queen in East Malling. It was almost completely deserted and we didn't receive that warm a welcome from the non-committal barman either despite us being regular patrons. The only other people in the pub when we arrived didn't seem too happy with the meal they'd been served either so it was a bit of a downbeat experience to be honest!
By the time we got back the pork had completed its roasting time and it had to be left to rest so we managed to fit in a beer watching the New Year's Eve edition of Graham Norton - with a particularly entertaining story from Robbie Williams about how he'd 'lost' his pert bum after taking Ozempic (the weight loss drug) and that the motion caption actor who plays him as a chimpanzee in the biopic Better Man now has a much better posterior than he does!
It was then time to sit down for our meal with the pork served with roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots, bread sauce and a homemade spicy gravy. Thankfully it all tasted great and that black treacle really did add an extra element!
It got to the end of the day and I suddenly realised I hadn't got an image so I cobbled together this rather rudimentary pictorial salutation - but I do quite like the groovy (it looks a bit 70's rather than 21st Century) background! 
I'm posting this a few days after the event so a belated Happy (and Groovy) New Year and the very best for 2025 to all my fellow blippers!