2026 Week 1

I barely made it to midnight on NYE this week. I was prone on the sofa at 10.30, almost unable to keep my eyes open. I am not one for big NY festivities for the sake of it, but I draw the line at missing midnight. The last time I can remember missing a NY midnight was in 1999, a truly depressing NYE that began with Mother Hand coming in to tell me she and her mother had decided it was cold enough for thermal vests and I should wear mine also. A horrifying foreshadowing of a future I had absolutely no interest in pursuing. 

Anyway. Happily, this week, I rallied and managed to stay awake until the end of the London fireworks. I still get a little kick out of shots of the London Eye, remembering seeing in the millennium from underneath it, after enterprising revellers including myself collapsed the barriers to get to the river's edge. I saw on TikTok that it now costs £45 to stand there, you have to be in by 10.30 and then you're not allowed to leave for two hours. Ghastly. Push the barriers over, guys. 

(Just went back and re-read the blog post about the millennium night and it seems I crawled under one barrier and pushed over another. I was a regular little hooligan in my youth.)

There hasn't been much else to this week, really. Lots of sleep, lots of lounging. Many episodes of the Sopranos and a catch-up of the entire series of Celebrity Traitors (Alan Carr, what a legend). We completed Super Mario in record time and have basically finished the Luigi version as well, unprecedented. Turkey melts. Cheese boards. Gym visits. Sauna visits - I managed to get to the newish local community sauna twice. Some bits and pieces of work, in a very relaxed fashion. I knitted half a mitten and then ripped it back after trying it on with the thumb opening because the gauge was too tight - very mandala. I worked on my 'Spring 1' list of nice things to do and it turns out to be a very worthy and nourishing sort of list, which I suppose is OK. Probably right for the time of year. 

This time last year I was preparing to fly home from Kazakhstan. That was a great holiday but I don't think I appreciated how much I need a quiet Christmas break. It has been a really long time since I did nothing much at all for several days in a row and I have found it very rejuvenating.