I am not a big fan of New Year's Eve. It has always felt like a "false dawn" to me, an artificial break point between the old year and the new. I dislike the artificial bonhomie that it generates - particularly the "mailing list" SMS messages you get , post midnight, from people who have drunk too much and realised as they scroll through the address book in their mobile phone that they haven't spoken to you for the best part of a year. "Hope to see you next year" is usually the last sentence, but it is a throw away comment, it's not meant seriously. I can guess which friends will find time to see us next year. The same ones that made the effort last year. I don't meant this to sound negative, I'm just recognising that as my life has changed and the demands of a young family and running a business fill my life, my social circle is shrinking to a core group of people that actually make the effort to find time to see each other.
Despite that, I did enjoy my self because we kept it low key at Blacknotebook Towers. There was just three of us in the house and we spent most of the evening sitting around a log fire in our garden. It took us about thirty minutes to get the fire started and we nearly gave up, because the kindling would just not light. Eventually, we managed to get the mixture of fuel, oxygen and ignition in the correct proportions and the air was filled with sweet smell of applewood logs beginning to catch. Another fifteen minutes later and we had heat - lots of heat. The evening was bitterly cold and I got to experience the odd pleasure of the front of my body being roasted by the flames and my back being chilled to the bone by the icy air. I was so consumed by watching the flames flicker and spit (what my friend calls "Natures Television") that I missed the clock hitting midnight completely. It was a good forty five minutes before I realised that the New Year had actually started. I had also missed five text messages on my mobile.
"Nevermind", I thought, as I put another log on the fire.
