Boat House Cafe in Chichester Marina

Like many people, today marked the end of Christmas leave. It's been a pretty lacklustre festive fortnight. We are only just at the end of our winter illnesses (in time for work tomorrow, typically) and its rained relentlessly for most of the last two weeks.

Our round of family illnesses has meant we had to cancel pub lunches, a long-planned theatre trip and a visit to family in East Sussex and after over two weeks of making excuses, I genuinely think some people started to think we were avoiding them.

It wasn't all bad news though. Some particularly brave friends we haven't seen for two years dropped in for coffee despite the coughs and colds. They stayed at arm's length and seemed to have escaped without becoming infected. Today we thought we'd better make an effort to finish Christmas leave on a high and make up for the cancelled trips, so we headed to Chichester Marina and the Boat House Cafe for lunch.

It's only been open for about six weeks, but even at midday in mid-winter it was packed. The ambiance, the decor, the staff, the serving time and the food were all faultless (what a pleasure it is to report that when it happens!) They even allow dogs inside and there was a queue of them nearly as long as the human one when we left. I have this place marked down as my first venue to review for south-coast breakfasts in 2014. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it!

Tomorrow is yet another new page. Not the start of the new year, but the start of the working new year and we have many things to make progress with this year, as I'm sure you all do too.

Happy New Year my blogging friends!