Saturday was a palindrome. ‘22’nd of January. 22/1/11 in fact. I am not especially superstitious, but this seemed like the perfect day to host our girly new year’s dinner.

Now I realise that the actual new year was a little while ago, but organising anything on this island is like herding cats. And arranging a dinner for 11 business women is like herding swifts. On 1st january 2011, swift #1 was back in oz [hungover], swift #2 was on a buying trip, swift #3 was on a silent retreat in india, and so on.

Wanting all 11 girls to be present for the new years dinner, we waited a while for the little birdies to fly home. As tempting as it was to wait for the moment when every girl was on the island, history [and a year delayed book club meeting] shows that this day will never arrive. And so, we went ahead with the lucky flock of girls who had chosen to pair 22/1/11 with bali. The aim of the dinner was to ‘set our intentions for 2011’. The setting was the lovely Green Ginger in Berawa…

Being quite a hippy bunch, out of the 11 guests – 3 were vegetarian and 1 was vegan so ‘green ginger’ was the obvious locale. Owned by local legend and good friend, jono ‘zucchini’ russell, ‘green ginger’ is a cute little cafe which serves up the finest and freshest of animal friendly yumness. We opted for a sharer feast of: ginger shitake tofu wontons, larb lettuce cups, spinach shallot dumplings, oyster mushroom thai omlette, tempeh & feta green salad, vietnamese noodle salad, gomae steamed greens, green papaya salad and thai red curry. Passion fruit & pineapple coolers were spiked with vodka. Ginger & lime juice was laced with gin. Detox starts in feb!

Pudding came in this pretty shape [coffee, cardamom, ginger & petal cake]

Ever the craft fiend I decided to make some homemade crackers [or bon bons as they’re called in oz]. The lovely Amy from Lyloh sarongs donated her beautiful fabric offcuts and happily helped out in the making of the crackers. actually she was pretty much the orchestra to my annoying conductor. The bon bon’s doubled up as place settings – each one had a girl’s name on it accompanied by a beautiful star map sticker of a city from around the world. Cynthia was sydney. Pop mie was havana. Ziggy was new york…

This is what the finished product looked like from the outside…

Inside there were little notes with inspiring words from inspiring people…

Attached to the quotes were keys to a communal sea circus locker. The girls now all have the key to a ‘starlet’ locker which they can fill with goodies – books that challenge ideas, photos that flatter creativity, sweeties to share, grappa to toast, and of course a designer dress-up collection.

After the bon bons and the feast we came to the point of the evening… The welcoming in of the ‘new year’. Refusing to vow for the 5th consecutive annum to ‘learn the guitar this year’, i decided to shake up the tired tradition and commit to worthwhile resolutions in front of a supportive audience.

By writing down our resolutions with pens and paper and stuff… and saying them out loud in front of friends that will support us along the way [and tell us off if we don’t do them]. And then by putting all of the written resolutions into a glass jam jar that we will have to walk past every day at home… We hope to actually fulfill them this year!

The intentions were split into 8 areas:

1. something that i commit to learn this year
2. somewhere i promise to visit this year
3. someone i will pour my energy into this year
4. a fitness goal i will attain this year
5. a career aspiration i will achieve this year
6. [remembering my brownie guide ‘sixer’ days] a good deed i will do this year
7. an emotion i will focus on or a mantra i will hold on to this year
8. ..the eighth part was purely self indulgence. [and why not?!] It involved my three favourite things: sparklers, wishes and friends. Each girl got a sparkler and got to made a wish for this year…

We’d love to hear your resolutions so feel free to comment and tell us what you plan on accomplishing in 2011. Don’t tell us your wish though [otherwise it wont come true]. Mr disney told me so. x