New Year’s Eve!
Twenty-five years ago it was Millennium Eve. There was some argument about it actually being Millennium Eve as, strictly speaking, the year 2000 was the final year of the previous millennium and the new one began on January 1st 2001. But 2000 was a nice round number, full of fine fat zeros and 2001 had connotations of the rather fatalistic Space Odyssey film, with the computer taking charge. And there were already enough rumours spinning around about how the various computer systems were not going to respond well to changing from 1999 to 2000 and might crash. They didn’t!
Millennium Eve was also the 50th birthday of an old friend who organised a small party of a select group of friends to help him celebrate. We ended up taking a very small Granddaughter Number One along with us so that her mother could out and celebrate the New Year with friends. One of the guests assumed she was ours, a late addition to the family - which of course she was but not actually my child, flattering as the idea might be.
Those New Year’s Eve birthday parties became a regular event. Amazingly it almost always turned out to be crisp and cold, perfect conditions for watching celebratory firework displays from our friends’ garden at the high point of the town. Perfect also for a walk down from that high point to our house in valley in Delph, lit by the almost full moon.
I noticed last night that we had a high, bright, almost full moon, which explains the cold night and the frost on the shed roof this morning.
Our Millennium Eve birthday friend died almost 13 years ago. For some time we kept up the party tradition, raising a glass in his memory, probably even until Covid came along and disrupted all our lives. And this evening we have no plans to go and celebrate the start of another year. I might well be fast asleep when midnight comes around! What a difference a quarter of a century makes!
Eurostar seems to have to to a bad end to the old year, with accusations of too high prices and yesterday a loss of power, leaving people trapped in LeShuttle. “A LeShuttle passenger, Tim Brown, told the PA Media news agency he had been stuck in his car on the train at the Calais terminal for more than three hours with “no access to food or water. The fact that nobody has come around offering everybody a bottle of water is what has shocked me the most,” he said. “I know things happen, but surely that would be an easy way to help.”” Poor customer service must be added to their list of failings. They are not sure that things will return fully to normal today!
I have only travelled through the Channel Tunnel once, accompanying a group of A-level students to a conference Paris. We convinced some of the more gullible students that if they got off our bus once we the shuttle got moving and stood in the kind of open area there, if they were fortunate they might see fish swimming in the Channel. Such trusting 17-year-olds!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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