The Nature of New Years Eve.

The walk was a bit of a waste of time tonight. Somebody was letting off premature fireworks, and there were too many cars on the lane. Most were headed for the pub which is staying open until the early hours. No doubt they were coming early to claim seats and get tanked up for a few hours, by which contrivance they might properly be conditioned for the midnight round of crooning and kissing, hugs and handshakes, halloos and ‘Happy New Years.’

I’m not being cynical. People coming together in celebration has much to commend it, even though at no time in my life did I ever really see the appeal of New Years Eve. The calendar is, after all, an artificial instrument; there’s nothing of either natural or cosmic significance about the change from December 31^st to January 1^st. Beltane and solstice fires seem much more meaningful to me.

Nevertheless, I did decide earlier to accord with a popular custom: to look back on the year and draw up a profit and loss account, and maybe even construct a balance sheet. It’s what people do and I thought it might make an interesting blog post. I made a start sitting by the fire after dinner, but it soon became too personal, too profound, and ultimately too pretentious. As such it was only expressible in cryptic terms, and what use would that have been? And so I’ll offer up just one item from the list:

I made lots of soups in 2012, but only one apple crumble.

Make of it what you will.

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I’ll tell you what was odd, though. When I woke up this morning I felt grateful that there was only one more day of 2013 to go, since I’ve never been fond of the number 13. It wasn’t until early afternoon that I realised we hadn’t even got to 2013 yet.