It Was Just Another Day

As I've already mentioned, I was working on New Years Eve so I didn't celebrate.  As my client saw it as 'just another day' and went to bed, as usual, at 10 pm, I locked up the house, turned off the TV and settled down for the evening with my book.

At 11 pm the skies over Cardiff were it up by those over eager souls who couldn't wait until midnight to let off their paltry selection of cheap and nasty fireworks.  I had a quick  look out of the window but I wasn't impressed by what I saw.  I knew immediately that Sydney Harbour's pyrotechnic display would once again over shadow anything Cardiff had to offer.  It always does and always will.

In the years between my youth (when alcohol was denied me) and my more sober adult years (where I denied myself alcohol) I have attended many a wild and wicked party.

I imbibed with a passion that rarely allowed me to remember, let alone see, the celebrations at hand.  Many a time I heard the clock strike midnight with my head halfway down a toilet bowl or in the custody of the local constabulary.

Those were the days, eh?

But I grew up ... eventually ... and became a none-drinker.  A glass of bubbly, only at the appointed hour and only after a round of 'chinking' glasses, would be all that crossed my lips.

Many years before I began my examinations of toilet bowls - when I was still living in Newbiggin By The Sea (Northumberland) - I would roam from street to street, house to house, party to party picking up a rag-tag collections of friends and relatives en route and we would nearly always all end up at my aunt's house to see in the New Year.

In those days no one locked their front doors.  You could pick a house at random, knock, walk straight in shouting 'Happy New Year!' and you were part of the celebration.  No objections! No problems!

Someone would probably shoot you if you tried that nowadays.

Anyway, my point is that I no longer celebrate the change of  the year as I once did.  I, like my client, accept the 31st of December, and indeed the 1st of January, as 'other days' in my daily slog.

Truth be told, the new year is just a reminder of how old I am becoming and in March, I will receive another one accompanied by cards and choruses of 'happy birthday'.

These days, I would no doubt make a lousy party guest.