Happy New Year!!
on Blog From Beyond (Rwanda), 02/Jan/2010 22:20, 34 days ago
A totally unoriginal post title but the fact I'm capable of typing anything right now is a good start :opWelcome to the tenties. Hope everyone's still alive - not too booze addled. I missed the Blue Peter episode where they taught you how to make a new liver from a washing-up bottle and some sticky back plastic, but let's soldier on regardless.Christmas day was lovely. Kicked off at 10:30am with the first of several bottles of champaign and yummyThornton's chocolates. Went to the pub, came back, ate a fantastic dinner of duck in orange gravy with all the trimmings and plenty more champaign *hic*Was a quiet affair, just mum, Merrick and myself but cosy and good. Fell asleep in front of films.Boxing day we had a big bash for all our friends in the village. Cue mulled wine with lashings of brandy and more food than you could bear to look at, including mum's speciality: ham steeped in cider.The day after that (27th) I headed down to Farnborough to see a Pagan friend, Liam, who put me up for a few days and kept me drinking. We had a lovely outing to Yateley Heath and surrounding woodland and some extremely late nights (or early mornings, depending how you look at it) chatting. Also had a lovely chat to D. long-distance.I was going to head to Lewisham to seeCassie, Sean& baby Ryan manbut Cas, being a nurse, was called on a night shift so I stayed at Liam's an extra night and went straight to Peckham to meet up with Cathryn who is staying with her friend Charlotte.It was SO weird seeing her outside of Rwanda. In a good way - but surreal non-the-less *waves to Cathryn*We headed to a bring-a-dish house party along a Spanish theme and the food was glorious. Drank rather a lot but didn't get too drunk and got home the right side of 3am (I think...)One of my overriding memories was of a guy at the party called Harvey. As we counted down from ten (for the second time - weren't too sure about synchronising watches) he was mid-sentence about something else with somebody standing next to me. When we got to zero and everyone shouted 'Happy New Year', I just overheard the tail of his conversation: '...it could have been worse'. What an insightful epitaph to the year ;)Tackled London traffic again yesterday and made my way home. I hate driving in London, it's like running an assault course in flippers. I almost wept with relief when I finally hit the M1.I've been rather boring today and filled out a load of job applications. That's it, now the party's over I really need to work out my next move and at present I don't have many options so need to get my head down and figure it out.Just been upthe localfor a quick drink. All is good really. Traditional Christmas achieved.Hope everyone else is good and recovering in a dignified fashion.Oh, I have a book I'd like to strongly recommend. It was on myfriend Graeme's shelfand he said it was well worth a read. So I picked up a copy and it is absolutely fantastic. Best love story with a worthy ending I've read in many a year.Now& Thenby William Corlett. It's gone right up there next toSeduction of Silenceby Bem Le Hunte, still my all-time fav. But it's an astonishingly good read. One of those you finish and have to take a week out to think about.Also finally managed to watchPan's Labyrinthafter far too long of not quite getting there. It was indeed very good, though I'm not sure how it made a 15. I'm 28 and still not sure I'm old enough to watch it ;) - the scenes where he's caving the guy's nose in with the bottle and then when he sews his mouth shut and the drink leaks through...*shudder* But very good.Back to work on Monday, should be sober enough by then. Going to bumble along and work extra hard at applying for jobs. Try and distract myself with road trips whenever I get the chance.Let's see what this decade has in store :)