New Years Eve I had to work from 11-2 so I was up, dressed in Nicola-clothes and had gathered up all the books and dvds that were due back by about 930am. I left the others still in pjs playing with lego and playmobil – I think other than chopping some wood ready for getting home on New Years Day and getting the sleeping bags and camping mats out of the wardrobe they were pretty much in the same spot when I came home again.
I gave myself an hour to wander round the charity shops to see if people had started their grand post Christmas clear out and give to charity yet – they haven’t. And to visit the newly opened pound shop. I got some nylon shopping bags which will be perfect for shoving in my bag / pocket so I always have a bag around as I’m great for having cloth bags in my car at all times but less good at having them on me when I actually am out and about. Also got some plastic tubs for storing and freezing food (have been reading Economy Gastronomy: Eat Better and Spend Less
Then to work. I caught up with colleagues about their Christmasses, put some books away, manned the counter and said ‘Happy New Year’ to about 60 borrowers and then left.
Back at home again we gathered up overnight stuff, I made some sandwiches to take with me and we set off. For some reason I’d not thought through getting food and drink supplies to take properly and had in my head we’d go to the supermarket near Bob and Katy. Til Ady reminded me there was every chance they’d be closed by the time we got there! By which time we were already on the M23 so we had to detour into Crawley and find an Asda which appeared to be also being visited by most of the south east and was heaving. Fizz, cheese, crackers, grapes and olives (I felt like *such* a grown up!) purchased we were off properly again. Sat Nav had said ETA of 1830 and we’d anticipated a big snarl up around Dartford but it was a really clear run and we actually arrived by about 1815.
Lovely Em and The Babs were already there; Davies and Scarlett disappeared straight into the throng and we settled in for eating, drinking, chatting, laughing and dealing with visits from various children, balloons, leaky glowsticks and other such needs. We watched the countdown on Bob and Katy’s fab retro black and white tv set which had both a lot of charm (we had a colour tv by the time I was born but we still had a portable black and white in my parents’ bedroom which we sometimes watched some things on. As an aside I’ve just realised how very laughable calling those great lumps of electronics ‘portable’ :lol:) and nostalgia as well as heaps of irony seeing fireworks explode into ‘2010’ in black and white.
There were glowing balloons, lots of port consumed (some spilled on Babs’ trousers :lol:), we realised that none of the children had been born a decade ago (although Beth and Jonathan had been on the way and Davies was concieved sometime between Christmas and New Year 1999). We talked about how we’d seen 2000 in and what a big change all of us have lived through in the last decade.
LovelyEm and Matt headed off somewhere between 12 and 1am, Ady and Chris went off sometime around 1ish and took lingering children with them leaving Bob, Katy, Babs and I. Bob went off not much later having regaled us with genuine Bob facts (and we will be expecting BobFact to be maintained 😉 good to see a start made 🙂 ) about fathom and Godmanchester, we’d talked about proposals and weddings (and giant elephants, or actually pygmy elephants) and finished by looking at some photos of a very young Katy and her baby sister and seeing the likeness of all four of Katy’s children in them. I think it was about 3am when we finally went off to bed too.
Consequently this morning was a slower start, which was nice. I like the morning after the night before with friends. We left about midday as I was conscious of wanting to get back in daylight and have a quiet afternoon to recoup as I’m working again in the morning. We had a very uneventful journey home, a late lunch and baths all round.
We watched bits of a couple of films; Dragonheart and Willy Wonka and then the warm up intro show to a Dance show that’s starting on Sky one on Sunday with Davina. Then it was Doctor Who. Scarlett and Ady went to her bedroom and listened to some audio books (she’s working her way through a load of alliterative Lucy Daniels stuff ‘ cub in the couboard, hedgehogs in havoc, puppies in the pantry, lambs in the laundry…. I reckon I could write those :lol:) and she lost her front tooth.
Davies and I enjoyed Doctor Who although it did seem to drag on a bit. Not at all sure about the new doctor, I thought he did a good David Tennant rather than a good doctor in the few minutes he had to win me over so far.
The kids went to bed, althought it’s nearly 11pm and neither of them are actually asleep yet. One is still listening to Koalas in crisis or something similar, the other keeps reappearing back downstairs with flimsy exuses. Pesky non-sleeping children!