New Year's Eve...

I am not, and have never been, a lover of New Year's Eve.  I find saying goodbye to the old very emotional.  I have rarely been 'out on the town' for that celebration and had a really good time so more recently if we have not been spending it with Mum and Dad we have had a meal in with friends instead. Last year we hosted Rob and Di and this year we were eternally grateful when they returned the favour and invited us to join them - so no cooking for me today save to reheat the remainder of the pasty-pie for lunch to ensure we had lined our stomachs in readiness for the evening ahead.  And you know you are really living a rock 'n roll lifestyle when the first thing you pack for your BNO (Big Night Out) is your slippers!

So it may only have been the four of us but this did not mean any lack of effort in making it an evening to remember.  Di had prepared a really lovely meal although we didn't make it to the cheese course - we will just have to have a New Year cheese and wine evening instead!  and she had raided Jumbos for their finest party bits and pieces.  We had saved our respective Christmas Presents until this evening and I had done our version of the Present Game so that we could while away some time before midnight.

We started our evening with everso posh nuts (for nutters) at 6.00pm and the conversation never flagged and although I normally turn into a pumpkin round about midnight it was nearing 2.00 am before we made our way back up the hill and home to the feline four.

We don't go mad with the Christmas gifts, limiting our spend so that we ensure we do not.  This year both Di and Rob had admired the last picture I had done so I had it framed for them - I hope they weren't being kind because now they are lumbered with it!!!  I have long admired the wind chimes the Veaseys have in their garden because they are melodic and soothing in a way which most wind chimes really are not - in fact I keep telling Di that if they go missing she will know where to find them and so we were chuffed when we opened our package to find similar windchimes inside.

We laughed our way through the meal with the box of After Dinner Questions that I had picked up on one of my Christmas Shopping forays into town - that was a couple of Euros well spent I have to say and can come back out again at another meal if conversation dries up!

As always the Present Game was a success and I have to thank my sister for introducing us to the concept.  We have our own rules but the principle is much the same in that you throw a dice to score a six which will win you a mystery prize.  We do our game with numbered pebbles and there is always an extra prize so that by the end of the game one lucky person ends up with two gifts.  Tonight that lucky person was the Bobster! Sometimes you can see and feel the parcels but tonight I had kept it simple and provided gift bags each of which contained much the same - a small bottle of wine (either red, white, rose, fizz or rose fizz) a bag of sweeties and bag of pork scratchings - I had limited spend on these to just 3 euros each!  I love the challenge of finding goodies for the Present Game and once I have filled the bags and attached the numbers I can't remember exactly what is in each parcel so I still get a surprise, sometimes we ask participants to purchase one of the prizes themselves but I had all the stuff to hand so I did them myself.

After some lovely food and wine at the table we retired to the lounge and a Bobster music-fest - I excelled myself tonight by guessing that one of the tracks was by a group called Goldfrapp and for that I have to thank our friend Paul Haggett because before we left the UK I remember he used to have a bit of a thing for Alison Goldfrapp!

All that is left to say is a big fat THANK YOU to Di and Rob for an excellent evening - you can see that John had really enjoyed himself in this picture!!!

We wish them, all our family and friends and readers of this blog a happy, healthy and peaceful 2018.