New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve was a bit of a damp squib.  Brett was at work again and Rosie had managed to damage one of her teeth and had to go find an emergency dentist.   I watched the BBC’s retrospective on Not The Nine O’Clock News on iPlayer (great memories!) then headed into London.

Spent a while wandering aimlessly around the South Bank before retiring to the foyer of the National Theatre where I drank Earl Grey and thought deep thoughts for the most of the afternoon.

Eventually met up with Brett and Rosie and we made our way down to Wimbledon for dinner with Rod & Jess.  (Jess makes some splendid curries!)  One of the upshots of the evening was that they are coming to see The Magnets with us at the end of January!

Jess had a cold, so declined the chance to come with us into town to watch the fireworks on the river. Turns out it was probably the right move; we got there around 22:30 and the ‘Viewing Area’ around Charing Cross and Westminster was already full and closed-off.  A lot of the South Bank was also closed, so we ended up on the north side of Blackfriars Bridge, from where we had a reasonable view of The Eye.  The fireworks however weren’t anything spectacular from where we were, which was a shame given the hour we’d hung around in the cold to see them.

Rather than the fireworks, I suspect my enduring memory of the night will be the smell of frying onions from the street vendors and the noise of the others in the crowd – the crazy French girls who kept getting on each others’ shoulders to call (screech!) out to/for “Alex….” (again, and again, and again!), the mixed group of students who went into their own version of the Haka at the slightest provocation, or the girl departing after the fireworks who kept yelling out, “Happy New Year, you fuckers!”

The fact that it snowed for a few minutes almost as soon as the fireworks had finished was quite a nice finale though.  We lucked-out with the trains and found a Catford train was due within a few minutes of us getting to London Bridge.

It turns out that the fireworks looked much better on TV.  We watched the recording when we got home.