I've never really done the New Year's thing. It wasn't something that featured in my mother's home, and since I moved out... well, 2006/7 I had a migraine instead of going to a party, and I don't remember what we did 2007/8 (nor did I write about it - it can't have been spectacularly memorable).
Of course, this year we are in our own home (and it is not a small house), so Christmas and New Years parties were hosted here. Debxena hosted Waifs and Strays* here, which was pleasant; Tobermory liked the presents I bought him, about which I am thoroughly pleased. And I got a Christmas tree in the end. It is pretty, very traditional, and he insists that we take it down on Twelfth Night, rather than any earlier. Apparently this is traditional?
I mowed the lawns on the 31st. They needed doing, and Tobermory's shoulder is giving him gyp again. Too much of, well, anything, and it decides to disengage from it's socket. This is unsurprisingly suboptimal. It turns out that I quite enjoy mowing the lawns - it fits in the category of non-fiddly garden work, it was a pleasant sunny day, and I have the instant obvious accomplishment of a job well done.
New Years was good. A different subset of the social circle, a barbecue, quite a lot of alcohol (although no-one got disgracefully trollied!), an overflowing spa pool, midnight watching fireworks over the Sky Tower, the obligatory Auld Lang Syne**, finally opening the bottle of champagne we were given when we moved in... a lovely evening.
I nearly kissed InvisibleMoose and Lyz (his wife) when I got up this morning. I'd woken up fairly early, and cocooned myself in the bedroom so as not to disturb others. When I heard doors opening and the rattlerattlerattle of things going into the recycling bin, I figured I was safe to get up - and they'd loaded the dishwasher, washed the non-dishwasherables, tidied the lounge and kitchen, gone to the supermarket and bought fruit-for-fruit-salad and vanilla custard. I mean, I'm used to the standard helping-to-clean-up, it's just good manners (which all my friends exhibit!), but I hadn't expected that. Colitis also took a quick roadtrip to acquire milk/sausages/bread, which were required for the breakfast fryup.
Tobermory's father arrives in a week, or thereabouts. I am somewhat - no, extremely - nervous on this subject. I spoke to his mother again last night (in the Happy New Year's phonecall), and I don't find her impending presence nearly as terrifying.
It's now 6.01pm on the 1st of January, 2009. It's summer, a glorious day, and I am looking forward to what the year brings. I have good friends, my beloved Tobermory, probably several surprises and challenges and changes - and I am content.
*
Waifs and Strays - in the social circle in question, if you don't have family, are trying to escape your family, want some peace/quiet/change of scene/etc, you convene at a given location and have a low-key giftmassy gathering. It is pleasant, and we ended up with a ridiculous amount of chips and chocolate and cookies leftover from the various food offerings people brought.**
It was slightly surreal, although I can't put my finger on why. We were in the dining room in the dark, watching the fireworks. Somebody suggested it, Tobermory began it, and we [nearly] all joined in to sing along. There's a memory stirring, singing Auld Lang Syne, crossing arms with strangers; it's somewhere in my past, and I can't remember where or why.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
