New Year

Happy New Year! Hope it started well for you and will progressively get better.

For my two last years in Australia I had New Year parties. My New Year Eve started with grocery shopping, continued into cooking, greeting people, encouraging everyone to eat more and spending the night happily in the circle of my friends. My first new year in London was totally different. It was a work day, but there wasn’t much work to be done and I was able to leave early, but didn’t know what to do as there was no need to cook and prepare. I felt depressed and homesick for most of the day. The actual night worked out ok - I went to someone else’s party in Docklands and they had fantastic view of fireworks in Greenwich and other places along Thames. Next year was better as few of my Australian friends moved to London or came to visit and we met it at the pub together.

This new year was approaching really fast and my friends and visitors couldn’t decide what to do and where to go. And since Clive and I couldn’t join them at funky nightclub parties, I decided to host a small lunch/dinner gathering. As usual the invitation list grew at alarming rate and at the end I invited everyone I knew in London, who wasn’t away (luckily for my and Clive’s sanity some people already had other plans).

Early in the morning, while Catherine was asleep, Polina and I made Russian potato salad (Oliv’e), Clive marinated chicken, extra groceries were bought and we could relax until later. More food was prepared in the afternoon and guests started to arrive slowly at around 6pm. Soon the living room was full of people. There was plenty of food & drink and Anna (wife of Julia’s cousin Simon) & Polina started a dare game, which provided lots of amusement for everyone. Few people were delighted to meet Catherine for the first time. Her defensive reaction to all the noise and attention was to hibernate, so everyone commented on what a wonderful quiet baby she is. Since I didn’t want to overtire us the invitation stated the end time of 10pm and I started wondering how politely to send people off to the next location, when Jack efficiently organized everyone and took them all away. (Jack, thank you!)

Once everyone left Catherine opened her eyes, had a feed and got her nappy changed and went back to sleep. Clive and I were very tempted to follow her lead, but we cuddled all together on the couch untill midnight to great New Year and watch London Eye fireworks. For me this was perfect way to welcome New Year.