Happy New Year (again). Hope your celebrations were as enjoyable as ours and that your resolutions lasted longer than mine!
As most of you know, Penelope and I tend to celebrate New Year’s Eve when it gets to be midnight in Moscow or, at the very latest, Paris. We’re generally soundly snoring by the time midnight arrives in the UK. It’s been many, many years since we were out on the tiles on New Year’s Eve but this year we dragged ourselves out and partied like it was 1999!
For some years when we lived in Byfield our next door neighbours, Pete and Sally, held a New Year’s Eve Fondue party which was always great fun. The last one I can remember was in 1999 when seemingly everyone celebrated the coming of the new millennium on the wrong year. (It should have been 2000 into 2001 but what the heck). Since then our New Year’s Eve celebrations have been very pleasant but subdued.
It was with some trepidation, therefore, that we accepted Pete and Sal’s invitation to revisit those New Year’s Eves of yesteryear. Our good friends Sue and Stuart were also invited and they came up to spend the weekend in the Framington House Guest Wing. It really was a throwback to 1999. Pete and Sal set out a long table in their lounge with six or seven fondue pots gently bubbling away and we and they and their daughters and significant others indulged ourselves – there was certainly more wine consumed than we’ve had in a long time and we managed to stay reasonably conscious until the New Year had come and gone. You will be delighted to know that there was a rousing rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody just after midnight and you’ll be even more delighted to know that there is no visual or pictorial evidence of the event. It was a lot of fun but it’s clear that we are well-past our New Year’s sell-by date. We’ll need to revert to midnight in Moscow in the coming years.
Apart from gently recovering from the excesses of the night before, Sunday (New Year’s Day) was for me spent in a very similar manner to New Year’s Days in the past – stretched out on the sofa watching American College Football Bowl games on the television. What could possibly be better?
When I was young, New Year’s Day was always one of the best days of the year for those of us with perhaps more than a passing interest in American sporting events. Growing up in southern California it was always the Rose Bowl from Pasadena which was the highlight on New Year’s Day but there was also the Cotton Bowl from Dallas, the Orange Bowl from Miami and the Sugar Bowl from New Orleans – games which generally had the potential to be great games matching the top teams from across the country.
As I had studiously avoided hearing or reading about the results, I was able to watch them all “as live” which was simply marvellous. Imagine it! Four great football games, one after the other after the other after the other. Fabulous (for me – unbelievably tedious for Penny).
As well as being able to partly relive my youth over the New Year, Penelope and I have also been able to enjoy the company of a delightful young buck for the past few days. We’ve been babysitting Branston, next door’s four or five year old black lab while they’ve been visiting friends in the Lake District. We’ve had him a couple of times before and naturally he is in love with Penny (and at least tolerates me). If Pen is out the front and he is similarly outside the front of their house, he will bound up to her enthusiastically and, if our front door is open, dash in and make himself at home.
Naturally, having a dog in the home again has meant marvellous walks across the surrounding countryside each afternoon. Pen and I do occasionally walk ourselves without a dog for company but having Branston to stay has been much like the Good Old Days! Mind you, much as we have enjoyed having him here, we’re still not tempted to re-join the dog-owning fraternity just yet. Too many places to go and people to visit.
My friend Miles shared the following photo on Facebook the other day. Stuff like this does make you wonder what on earth they were thinking!
And finally, I was going through my inbox and weeding out a lot of the rubbish (as one does from time to time) when I came across an e-mail reference to the Catalonian tradition of caganer figurines.
Marvellous!
Love to you all,
Greg