When did New Year’s Eve stop being magical?

It’s December 31st again and it’s crept up on my unawares. I’m feeling cynical and jaded. What happened to the thrill of staying up and cheering in the New Year with a massive celebration with the naive hope that the next year is *bound* to be a better one?

I think part of it was that staying up to midnight was a rare event, an exciting exception to our daily life. These days being awake on the day’s switch over is common, despite all my best laid plans to have an early night. The days we get to sleep before 11pm are nothing short of a miracle.

We’ve had some great New Year’s parties, don’t get me wrong. One of my most fond memories of Croydon was a New Year’s party in the Dog & Bull. It was a closed-door free event – regulars only and it was fantastic. We knew everyone, the music was loud, the atmosphere merry… the best New Year ever. They had a repeat event the next year, only this time there was a charge and food was laid on. It just wasn’t the same, I’m not sure why – perhaps it’s part of the golden rule about never trying to repeat your most loved moments as it just doesn’t work.

Of course, with young children it gets even more complicated. A babysitter is expensive on a normal night, let alone on New Year’s Eve… if you’re lucky enough to get one of course. We could organise a party here of course, but that requires more effort and energy than I currently have. Christmas is over now… I’m looking forward to comfortable normality returning. That probably makes me incredibly dull (hint: this is the point where you all post reassuring things like “no, no, you’re not dull” in my comments, okay?)

There’s another sh1ft.org photo project, A Day In The Life… New Year’s Eve ’03, and I find myself torn. On the one hand, I’ve been really looking forward to another photo project – I’ve had such fun with the last ones I’ve done even if the photos didn’t turn out to be all that. I still love looking at them and have good memories of all of them. At the same time, with our current New Year plans (i.e. zilch) the chances are the pictures would be incredibly boring both to take and to view. Do I end up “staging” my own New Year’s celebration just to end up with something interesting to look at in years to come?

I feel a little depressed and guilty that we haven’t got anything organised, but the truth is, I don’t really feel the need to celebrate. It’s not that the last year was shit, or that I’m not looking forward to the next… I’m just looking forward to a “normal” night in, play some computer games with maybe some nice nibbles and a small glass of champers to make it just special enough. Maybe the next day we might start looking at getting some paint samples and decoration ideas for the spare room, but only if we feel bothered.

So why do I feel like we “ought” to make an occasion of it for forms sake?

Well, I’ve found somewhere that sells them (Riva Transparent Ball Pen) but at £0.63 each, minimum order 500 I might just leave that one as £315 just to replace a pen I broke seems a little excessive.

… so if anyone sees company promotional pens of that style being given away, nab one for me please?

Okay. Hypothetical question here. *ahem*

Just supposed you had an absolutely favourite biro – it writes more smoothly than any other you’ve ever owned, fits nicely in the hand, is a joy to write with whether you’re just scribbling a shopping list or carefully penning a letter. Then just suppose that pen broke.

Problem. It was a corporate gift type pen and doesn’t appear to be in general stock of “normal” stationery shops.

Would it be ethically and morally wrong to purchase 100 or so of those pens with, say, “Pewari’s Prattle” written along the side to replace it?

As I said, just a hypothetical question, honest…

… and I’ve finally sorted out a very small piece of XML! Probably would have been a bit quicker had I known what I was doing.

Anyway, as well as there now being an XML feed for Pewari’s Piccies, wintermute has very kindly set up a LiveJournal feed for it as well. Both feeds have a small thumbnail of the photo, you will need to click through to the site to see the larger image.

As a reminder, there is also an XML feed and LiveJournal feed for this site too, but they’ve been around for a while.

… go to my fantastic hubby, Akra who wrote me a script to do a latest picture thumbnail from my new photo blog in my sidebar. Enjoy.

We went out last night – finally went to see The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. I’m really glad we saw it on the big screen – a truly awesome film. I won’t bother doing a review as a) I don’t like to spoiler it for people who haven’t gone to see it yet and b) there are so many excellent reviews already available on the net there didn’t see much point. I will just say that Gimli had the best line in the whole film and I still REALLY don’t like spiders… oh and you’d be proud of me – despite being 19 weeks pregnant, I managed to avoid going for a wee half way through (mainly by a carefully calculated bathroom visit minutes before it started, no liquid passing my lips for an hour before and by forgoing my usual movie pepsi).

I did have a bit of a fright when we worked out how much the evening cost, though:

Babysitter: £22.50 for 5 hours + £4 booking fee (we don’t know anyone local so use an agency – an excellent agency I should add, but expensive all the same)
Car park: £ 1.20 (bargain I thought – probably could found a free space on a side street if we’d been diligent but the carpark was well lit and had CCTV – compared to London prices it’s hardly extortionate).
Tickets: £12.60 (average these days I guess?)
Snacks: £ 4.70 (for 1 icecream and 1 pack of minstrels – bloody ripoff)

So there you go – £45 just for an evening at the cinema (*gulp*) – no wonder we don’t go out that often and tend to rent DVDs in preference!

Still, it was worth every penny. I’m almost disappointed there’ll be no Lord of the Rings release to look forward to next year.

Some things just seem like a good idea at the time.

Today it feels like we have been around every single sofa showroom within a 20 mile radius. Okay, so we only went into three different stores, but psychologically it felt like THOUSANDS of them – just trust me on this. This is our dilemma: with Akra Jr taking over the spare room we will no longer have any place for visitors to sleep (there’s a Travel Inn down the road but apparently this is not acceptable or hospitable). Cue lightbulb moment – we’ll replace our sofa with a sofa bed.

It’s a shame because I like our old sofa – we got it second hand but it’s still in fairly good condition. It’s comfortable, it’s slouchy – it’s also far too big for the room.

Anyway, after trekking around three whole stores (one of them twice) we have finally selected this sofa bed and chair. During some burst of complete INSANITY we have chosen a white sofa. A WHITE SOFA! We have one messy toddler and a baby on the way … have we gone totally MAD?! Um… yes probably. We’ve chosen nice dark green scatter cushions to go with them though which will make all the difference.

Oh, and they’ll be scotch guarded, insured for five years and the children will be locked upstairs 24 hours a day…

Well, we’re back. Boxes and bags *mostly* put away. Cup of tea yet to be made. Christmas over for another year, can now relax and have a few days holiday before Akra is due back at work. Getting back to some semblance of normality.

Can we take the Christmas decorations down yet?!

Well I have entered my very first Photo Friday with my first day of playing with my new camera. I’ve put it up on the new photo blog but until I get my “recent picture” thumbnail thing on here working, I thought I’d show you the image here too. Very pleased with how easy the camera is to use and how sharp the images are. You never know, one day I might even explore some of the more advanced features!!

Treasured – click on thumbnail to see larger image.

… although we need to have words with him about “Adult Assembly Required” and toys bolted to the box with plastic tags…

Having a good Christmas so far, even if Akra Jr and I are the only sober ones in the house. Santa brought us a Canon Ixus II so looking forward to plowing through the manual and having a play!