New Day, New Year

Happy New Year!

It is a little late to round out the old year with a final posting so perhaps it's a good idea to start afresh this year.  Not that I have anything in particular to say.  I've just been on here giving things a little tweaking, bringing them up-to-date at last.  I'm not sure about adding images - you may, or may not, get any this time around.  If there aren't any you will know that I haven't ironed out the bugs of that one, yet!


Christmas, for us, was reasonably quiet.  For the first time since our children were tiny I didn't put up any decorations.  Not even a tree!  As we weren't going to have anyone here for any part of Christmas I didn't really see the point in putting in all that work (and let's face it, dragging out the decorations and putting up the tree is WORK!  Not to mention having to take it all down and put it all away again later) for just the three of us.  Scrooge's ba-humbug, indeed!  I must say that I did feel rather like that this Christmas, too, but that is another story and I would rather just forget about it, thank you, than re-live it all again.  So, no decorations apart from the Christmas cards that arrived.


This year we were to join our eldest son (T) and his wife and family for a Christmas bbq tea.  On the way we visited our youngest son, his new partner and his daughter as well as my sister and her partner, my father and my uncle.  A long list of rellies but in reality only two stops to make.  It all took time, though, and we were a little late getting up to T's.  No surprises there!  The kids were a bit hyper by that stage (as only 6 and 4 year olds should be - even the 9 month old was excited to see us) but that was to be expected.


The food was good, nothing particularly fancy but that is how we like it, and the company was pretty good, too.  The girls opened their little presents in between courses and seemed to like them.  If I can get the images to upload I'll try and find the photos on the camera of the bags I felted for them and show you next time I post.  I was quite pleased with how they turned out, considering I haven't done a lot of felting before.  I'm not sure that either of the girls (I didn't make one for the youngest) really appreciated them, though, nor did their parents.  If I did it again, I would wrap them differently, and separately, to try and show off their real worth, rather than to include them with the rest of the present.


After the evening was all wrapped up, and the girls dressed for bed, it was time for us to head for home.  I think it was about 10pm (late for the girls) when we finally left and never has that hour and a half drive home seemed so long!  I was glad that I wasn't the one driving.

Now, a week later, it is New Year's Day.  Last night we went to see the fireworks on Caroline Bay as we usually do every year.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to go this year, especially as it was a little showery but, as it was the Bay Carnival's 100th anniversary, I thought that it may be just a little bit special this year.  How special can fireworks get?  Yeah, they were pretty good.  They lasted about 20 minutes which isn't too bad.  Any longer and you can really start to get fidgety.  I'm sure they're not as loud as they used to be a few years back and that was what I really liked.  Those huge, big bangs that echoed off the surrounding cliffs!  The countdown?  What countdown?  That fell down even flatter than a pancake.  No singing of Auld Lang Syne and no tooting from any ships in the harbour, either.  Mind you, I didn't check to see if there were any in port last night.  So, some parts were good but the actual running of the whole show needs a real brush-up. 

After the fireworks were over it was a general melee to walk back across the Bay to get to the street entrance.  So many people wanting to go the same way.  Fortunately, most were well-behaved.  It really helps that there is a total alcohol ban on the Bay for the duration of the evening.  We were parked in a little side-street close by so across the main road we went (along with what seemed like another hundred or so other people) and back to the car.  Easy.  An easy road to go down to get back to the road home, too.  All this a far cry from years ago when we used to spend at least half an hour or more idling along in the car trying to get out of first the carpark, then to turn out of the side-road and onto the main road!  Diabolical.  Still a very late night for me so I'm tired again today.  So what's new.

(PS - the opening image, yes I got it to load, is an old one but I'm sure you will enjoy it better than nothing.  I preferred to watch last night, than take photos.)

I'll tell you a little about my latest knitting next time I post.  Until then, stay safe!