New Year

Posted: Wed 15 November, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: 2017/18, Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, New Year, Sociable, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

Normally, I don’t celebrate New Year – I couldn’t give a shit about midnight, Auld Lang Syne, fireworks and so on. Entirely not my thing.

However, over the last few years, I’ve been going out for meals on New Year’s Eve, and being back home (or, more usually, still driving home on beautifully clear and empty roads) by midnight.

This year though, it’s all a bit underwhelming – even the offering at Helene Darroze (where I went last year) is disappointing, as there’s very little change from what I had last year. There’s nowhere else that’s massively grabbing me as a “want to try” (or at least nowhere that’s currently released their menu)  so for now, I’m really not sure what I’m going to be doing.

Mind you, right now I’m actually quite OK with that, of actually doing sod-all for New Year.

Solo – Dining

Posted: Sun 21 December, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 2015/16, Change, Cynicism, Domestic, Festering Season, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Introspective, New Year, People, Personality, Single Life, Sociable | Leave a comment »

As I’ve said many times before, I’m pretty comfortable with being single, with living my own life, and not really needing any company for a lot of things. I’m happy going to concerts on my own, and to the cinema – indeed, doing most things like that. It suits me and the way I am.

However, there’s one thing I don’t like doing on my own – and get your minds out of the gutter, please! – which is going out for meals. I don’t know why it affects me more than other things – there’s not really any logical reason for it – but it does.

So, in 2015 I’m going to be addressing it a bit, and forcing myself to do it. There are places (both local and further away) that I really want to go to, and so this coming year that’s what I’m going to do. There’ll be a list of places I want to visit – which I may put on here, or may not – and we’ll see how I do.

And I’m starting the way I mean to go on. Earlier this month on Twitter I saw a New Years’ Eve menu that I *really* fancied at a place in Cambridge, and I’ve been wavering on it. But having decided to get my arse in gear with this, I got in touch and booked myself in – and I’m really looking forward to it.

It’s also the first time in *cough* years that I’ll have been out on New Years’ Eve – although it’s quite likely I’ll bugger off before midnight, because I’m still an antisocial bastard who doesn’t like people all that much…

 

New Year’s Eve

Posted: Tue 31 December, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Change, Charm School, Cynicism, Festering Season, New Year, People, Resolutions, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

ScroogeUnsurprisingly, I don’t really do New Year’s Eve.  Partly it’s that whole “Everyone else does it, so I don’t” thing I’ve written about before on here, but primarily I just don’t quite get the whole concept. OK, we go from [old year] to [new year]. Big whoop.  I get it – or at least more so – with birthdays, the anniversal thing of being another year older. (Or, more pessimistically, the celebration of having got through another shit year)  But celebrating a new year leaves me cold – let alone the whole ‘resolutions’ thing.

I suppose it makes sense in a “The new one will be better than the old one” spirit of hope and optimism over [x] years of experience, although one assumes that leaves most people really quite disappointed.

I’ve never been a fan of it though – I did too many New Year’s Eves working in pubs, dealing with pissed idiots singing “Auld Lang Syne” and being all ‘love thy fellow man’ at midnight, and kicking the shit out of each other by quarter-past. New Year’s loses its happy glow when you’re sat (for the third year running) waiting for an ambulance by half-past.

I know, I’m a grouchy old sod. I accept that about myself, and try to stop it from affecting others, and their decisions.

All the same, I’ll be quite contented tonight to be at home, just doing my own thing.

Have a good one, wherever you are, and whatever you choose to do.