I’m not inclined to dig in my desk to find the calculator so I shall have to take a guess. This is my sixty-seventh or sixty-eighth New Year’s Eve. Not that I’m counting, you understand. No, I’m simply setting the scene.
You see, after a long while, I’ve come to enjoy these anniversaries but not overly to celebrate them. The sky is alive with the sound of fireworks just now, at 21:00, but none of them come from or speak for me. It’s nice to reach another New Year and, to be honest, I’m somewhat relieved to be shot of the Old one, but beyond that… Nah. New Year for me is no more than a reason to be thankful, to raise my glass to my friends, and to totter off to bed as soon as Big Ben chimes the magic hour and Graham phones so we can exchange our greetings.
Resolutions? No, I don’t do resolutions. Well, perhaps…
I resolve to reduce the weight of my footfall on the Earth—I shall consume as little as possible and pollute no more than is essential.
I resolve to smile more than I frown.
I resolve to be grateful for what I have and not to covet what I don’t.
I resolve to continue to learn at least one new thing every day so long as I have two brain cells to rub together, and to forget as little as I may of what I know already.
And that’s quite enough of that.
And, finally, speaking of fireworks and of greetings, Dolly came into the study just now to seek a little comfort against the former. Seizing the moment, I propped the video camera on a shelf, sat down with Dolly for a moment of togetherness, and recorded a videogram of our best wishes for you all. Not the best quality but I hadn’t planned for it. It’ll do.
For everyone, including those who can’t view the video’s, Dolly and I wish you all a very Happy New Year, peace, prosperity, and may all your troubles be small ones. Happy New Year. Oh, and thanks for reading.
There are days when I’d cheerfully cast my TV sets out of the door, and my radios with them, and go find myself a cave in some lonely spot, withdrawing from the human race entirely.
At every turn from first thing this morning until I got so heartily sick of it I went to bed early to hide my head away I seem to have been surrounded by images and words recording and marking the judicial murder of Saddam Hussein.
The depth of my loathing of the death penalty is impossible to describe and I am totally at odds with the thinking processes of those who think it justifiable. The depth of my horror of the doings of Saddam while he was in power is impossible to describe, too. And I’m going nuts here trying to equate the two and fit them into some kind of balance.
Ach, to hell with them all. This was a day when it would have been better to stay a’bed, leaving the world to its own infernal devices.
There are discernible gaps in the streams of people milling about the shops now, and not all of the shoppers are there to see what bargains there are to be had. I witnessed one person with a basket full of fresh vegetables—fresh vegetables, at last!—and several others engaged in daily shopping of the normal kind. I do believe that the Great Retail Rush is coming to an end at last.
It could be that other people, like me, received their first credit card statement after the big end of year spend today and, unlike me, were not pleasantly surprised to find the total a lot less than they’d expected and perfectly small enough to be settled fully before the next one comes in. Credit cards are fine so long as, in normal times, you can settle the account at the end of the month, leaving the built-in credit facility to bridge emergencies. Unless you’re one of the fortunate, totally free people who simply don’t care, of course. Me, I worry if I pay a bill a day late, always have and, like as not, always shall. The world’s economic system needs both kinds of people, I suspect.
Anyway. Once I’d grabbed milk and bread and a small cauliflower, I came home, shut the door, and left a rather damp and windy town to itself. We had a day at home, doing nice, low-impact things and enjoying our last day of holiday. Graham goes off to the holiday camp tomorrow afternoon to kick off their New Year festivities. I’ve been invited, of course, but I shall stay home to serve Dolly, look after the house, and and keep it all warm and snug ready for his return on New Year’s day.
We don’t, as a family unit, have a tradition of celebrating the New Year in any great style. Just a toast of bubbly as the clock strikes midnight and then, often as not, a sensibly early night so’s we can face the incoming year in good condition. Never have been able to see the sense in starting a year off feeling hungover and bleary-eyed. Better to greet it with a spring in your step and a smile on your face.
I have no idea what may be in our stars for 2007. It’s extremely unlikely that we’ll be moving house, and that’s a blessing. I reckon we’ll have that pleasure in about four years time, so I can forget it for now. About the only plan we have is to build our new gardens but that’s a continuation of the plan that’s already in progress, in the house.
Speaking of which, the house is coming along nicely now. Graham has been doing a little every day right through the holidays and intends to leap into action in earnest shortly after his return, aiming to get the job finished before Spring is upon us and we want to start on the outside. I asked, meekly, if I could do a video tour of the house today and was told off in no uncertain terms.
“Certainly not. You can do it when I’ve finished and not a day sooner.”
“That hardly seems fair. There are people all over the planet wanting to see it. They’ve been following our every move since the day we opened the door.”
“Well, alright then. You can do the living room. It’s not finished but it’s respectable enough. Not a step outside it, mind.”
Normal times I live in a rather sheltered and slightly privileged world and I know it. There I am, out and about, doing my small doings, nice and quiet and peaceful, while most people are at work, locked up in offices, factories and such. Try as I may it’s easy to forget just how lucky I am and it does me good to be reminded now and again of the real world.
Most people here in the UK are on holiday just now, you see, taking a few days of annual leave to join the Christmas and New Year public holidays together, making one long winter break of it. And here, they seemed all to have decided it was time to get out and about and go shopping in Taunton.
Graham has recently acquired a double art poster of a painting by Peter Kitchell, replacing the copy we bought back in the very early 80s and which was lost during the big house move when I retired a few years later. We’ve missed it, Graham particularly has missed it, and so he pounced on a new copy when it came up a couple of weeks back. Needs framing, though, so he decided that today was the day to take the work in and commission a posh framing job for it.
“You do realise that it’s going to be shopping hell out there?” I cautioned.
“Well, yes, but we do have to go out some time. I’ll treat you to a decent coffee…”
“Say no more. Now?”
On the way over to Taunton we decided that, since we come into the town close by the big retail park on the outskirts, we’d call in at PC World on the way to see if they had a copy of Adobe Premiere Elements. They didn’t. They did have a perfect little padded case to hold the video handycam, though, so the visit wasn’t entirely wasted. They also had a crush of customers in the store such as I’ve never experienced before, and only one clerk manning the checkouts. Not the fastest bunny in the litter, either. So the queue when I joined it was daunting and, by the time I got to the front, ready to pay, was frightening. That was when the manager decided it was time to man the pumps and put clerks on the other five checkout positions.
“That place does my head in,” I said as we emerged into the fresher air of a full to the gunwales carpark. “For goodness sake let’s get down to the town for that coffee you promised me. I’d like something to munch, too, if you please.”
“It’s a deal. We’ll have to take these prints into the framers first, though.”
“Of course. I don’t mind that. Just so long as we can get away from these monolithic hell boxes of retail madness.”
I had to take pity on him when we came out of the framers. Or, rather, on his wallet. The bill for two big aluminium frames was horrendous. Much as I’d expected but I think it came as a bit of a shock to poor Graham.
“Let’s make coffee and lunch my treat today,” I said. “Put your wallet away and give it a rest.”
“Ta.”
“My pleasure.”
Caffé Nero in Taunton is housed in one of the most ancient buildings in the town. A merchant’s house originally, it was built in the 13th century and extended to the front in the 14th. By some miracle or series of miracles it has survived more or less intact to this day and, protected by layers of regulations you wouldn’t believe, will go on a good while yet. When you take your coffee in the inner section you’re in the original great hall, with gallery and attics like something out of a children’s adventure book.
I’ve often thought that it would be worthwhile making a short moving picture record of it to show my friends so when we’d finished our snack I stayed on a couple of minutes to film (videograph?) the interior and then, when I joined Graham who was waiting for me outside, I turned round and did a quick scan of the exterior. Unlike Starbucks [turns head aside and spits, contemptuously] Caffé Nero doesn’t mind in the slightest if you take photographs.
“Well, now everybody in Taunton knows what you got for Christmas, and no mistake,” he said.
“Don’t care. I entering on the age when you can do looney things and be treated merely as a harmless eccentric. And I’m enjoying it.”
“Good for you. I’ve always said F**** ‘em if they can’t take a joke would be a good motto for you and you seem to have adopted it at last.”
“Should have done so years ago.”
“Nah. You had to at least look respectable.”
On the way back I let out a sudden howl.
“Whatever’s the matter now?”
“I forgot to make a commentary as I shot my video.”
“Oh well. We’ll just have to go back soon. Then you can act like a real looney and speak into your camera in public.”
“It’s the 21st century equivalent of muttering, I suppose.”
“Well, there’s a thought.”
During the evening I sat down to load the video clips into the computer and edited them together as best I can with the primitive tools I have at hand. I’ll have another go just as soon as I have a bit more skill and experience, a decent editing suite, and a microphone to dub voice-overs. This really is getting to be fun!
Seems the world went shopping again today, racking up the plastic like it’s never been racked up before. Well, good luck to them. If it’s what lights their candle then brightly may it burn.
Graham and I did no such thing. We stayed home, not doing a lot, just pootling around, nibbling at this and nibbling at that, and washing the nibbles down with what, astonishingly, totalled out at a bottle of Mumm 1995 and a little over a bottle of New Zealand Chardonnay (not tried it? you’re missing a treat).
“I feel as though I ought to be a little on the tiddly side,” I said as I carved into our glazed ham, all rich and glistening and garnished with apricot, pineapple, prunes and honey.
“Shut up and keep carving,” Graham replied, topping my glass up. “ABBA’s on TV in a minute and we need to be sat down to enjoy it properly.”
“Gimme, gimme, gimme a…”
“You’ll give yourself a nasty cut if you keep waving that knife around like that.”
“Oh. Alright. Spoilsport.”
By the end of the day, though, I’d run out of steam and, sad to say, my Christmas energy. Oh, the goodwill is still there but it’s a facade only, not backed by much in the way of ooomph.
“You know what?” I asked.
“No. What?”
“I think the tinsel is beginning to tarnish a little.”
“Know what you mean.”
“I think we’d better call a halt to the holiday now until New Year.”
“You’re probably right. What shall you do tomorrow, then?”
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