Tuesday 1 January 2008

New Year's Day

Even when I was a 20-nothing person who went clubbing and on wild nights out involving cocktails and handsome men, I hated New Year's Eve.
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Anywhere I would usually go would be twice as expensive and four times as busy for that night only. There always seemed to be a forced jolliness and a rather grim determination to see the New Year in with style, that usually left me with a flat feeling of failed expectations the next morning. Or a hangover.
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During 1999, millennium madness gripped the country and I remember people planning their New Year's Eve for pretty much the whole year in advance. Whoever you spoke to would ask where you were going to see in the millennium - on Sydney Harbour bridge? Up the Eiffel Tower? In a Gothic Scottish Castle? In Central London at the biggest rave ever imagined? No plan was too elaborate or ambitious.
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But by October 1999 I was a mother for the first time, and in a dark fog of utter exhaustion and bad post-natal depression. I could barely put a sentence together, let alone take my millennium baby to an all-night, alcohol fuelled party of dance and excitement.
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Then G had a wonderful idea. He suggested that as we were waking before dawn every morning anyhow, why didn't we get up when C woke, and take him up to Hampstead Heath where we would watch the dawn come up on the new year, century and millennium, looking down over London.



So that is what we did. I had expected it to be peaceful but in fact half of London had also headed up to Hampstead Heath after their night out, to watch the sun rise. G and I were the only sober people up there. I remember people cooing over C in his pushchair and toasting him with cans of beer. "Its a baby!!!" exclaimed one young woman. The picture above was taken that morning - he looks fairly bewildered by it all!

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G and I sat on a bench with C and all three of us rather blearily watched the dawn of the new millennium. London looked beautiful, crisp and clean in the morning light (and from such a distance!). We went home and invited all our friends over for some champagne to ease their New Year's Day hangovers. I was the happiest I had been in months, and so pleased that at last I had realised the best way to celebrate a new year, is on January 1st rather than December 31st.

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Today I continued my tradition and celebrated the start of 2008 by going shoe shopping with O to get her these fabulous party shoes, and then going on to see The Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House together with O, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.

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Thank you J, A and O for a really lovely start to my year.

6 comments:

  1. What a wonderful way to start the New Year. We don't celebrate it either...I was in bed by 10 O'clock! Your story about 1999 reminds me of my NYE that year. I was pregnant with H, suffering from horrendous all-day sickness and spent most days in bed. I remember R was decorating our bedroom so I was laying in the spare room listening to Classic FMs countdown of the Classics. It was wonderful!

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  2. I had rather hoped they were the new Hobbs shoes, not O's!! (fab, obviously) and I am in total agreement on NYE, forced jollity all round for most. Personally I favour playing golf in someones lounge in the early hours, as you have already seen!Love the idea of Hampstead Heath and C looks very cute, bundled up in his buggie. Bizarre that we have both done a new layout too?!Your NY day sounds great fun.x

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  3. Hello! My first visit here--you have a terrific place here in blogland! I like your approach to ringing in the New Year. DH & I have not been to or given a "proper" New Year's party in well, years. We prefer a more quiet, serene, relaxing way to ring in a new year--at home with our kitty, treats, champagne and favorite film or two. Your shoe shopping is a great idea to welcome the New Year. I might have to borrow that one--LOL! Happy 2008 to you & yours! :o)

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  4. love love love O's shoes! scrumptious! and i second this feeling re new years eve festivities: usually left me with a flat feeling of failed expectations the next morning. 1999: does this mean C is almost 8?! say it ain't so!

    ann

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  5. Lovely post. Envious of O's gorgeous shoes and the trip to the ballet. Best wishes for 2008.

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  6. love the shoes, hope you have a very happy 2008!

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