Brand New Year

It’s hard not to feel a little smug awaking on New Year’s Day without even the glimmer of a hangover. Of course the flip side is that the previous evening’s events are all perfectly recorded in memory, but then without the intake of industrial quantities of alcohol it’s much more likely that these events will not include kissing your boss, vomiting down your trousers or posting lewd tweets. If you remember doing these things whilst stone-cold sober, I suggest making a number of appointments with medical and psychotherapeutic professionals.

No, the events of New Year’s Eve at Pilsdon Community are necessarily an alcohol-free affair but nonetheless it’s hard to imagine an evening more full of cheer and warmth. Crammed into the Common Room with its fire burning in the hearth, over-replete from a three course Mexican-themed home-made banquet, we simply had to shed our inhibitions without the aid of wine or ale as various people stood up and entertained in song, poetry, music, and quiz. My quiz team perhaps inadvisably named ourselves The Victors which of course immediately ruled us out from winning anything. As there didn’t appear to be a prize anyway, we weren’t too disconsolate when we lost rather badly.

A tree stump in Cumbria full of money. It doesn't grow on trees exactly, it grows inside them.

As always I found myself on the piano stool for the majority of the proceedings, a position I’m very happy to occupy, although at one point I found myself sharing it with two others as we attempted to perform a duet with three people which afforded ample opportunities for panto-style japes as we pushed each other off to get at the piano, and occasionally playing the keys with noses and toes. No limbs were broken thankfully and we got a few laughs too.

The night culminated with fireworks on the lawn outside, our display being slightly preceded and out-classed by the next-door neighbour’s display which of course Matt, our fireworks-master, claimed as ours. Hot ginger punch, sparklers, and hugs all round at the moment we all unilaterally declared midnight. Tarquin slipped over and cut his finger open in the excitement.

The legendary Fairy Steps in Cumbria

Scheduled the next day (today) is the traditional New Year’s Day Walk, accompanied as usual by the traditional cold lashing rain. Fourteen of us and a dog drove over to Lambert’s Castle, the site of an Iron Age fort a few miles away on the western ridge of Marshwood Vale, and stumbled around it as the terrible weather attempted to chip away our hearty cheeriness and replace it with a sullen sodden sulkiness. It failed, mainly because we cut short the planned six miles to a more manageable three. This also meant I’ve had time to write these witterings this afternoon! And we still have all our kudos points from going on a walk at all, which means that somehow we have earned the Indian curry that Matt is cooking up for us for later. Roll on 2016!