Happy (Belated) New Year

We had a pretty quiet New Year's Eve, Kath came over from Kent to help us celebrate, but we barely even dented the enormous alcohol stockpile we'd set aside for the long weekend.

The night before New Year's, we made use of Kath's two Trivial Pursuit enhancement boxes, but as one was a very UK-centric Celebrity Questions, there was definitely a good box and a bad box being alternated for the questions. Within an hour Amanda had spat the dummy and given up (she is the first to admit she lives in a bubble) but we struggled on for 3 more hours before Kath and Johnny were crowned winners with 5 segments/wedges/whatever-you-call-them each.

The day of the 31st was put to good use with preparation of the four-course dinner:

• Cheese and biscuits (including English specialities Double Gloucester and Red Leicester)
• French Onion Soup
• Roast Lamb with all the trimmings
• Sticky Toffee Pudding with Butterscotch sauce

But more importantly, we introduced ourselves to our local watering-hole, The Bladud's Head*. We have two pubs within about 3 minutes' walk, the other one being called The Harvester and being more of a family restaurant in a pub setting. Nothing wrong with that, and they do excellent food at good prices, but sometimes you just want a real pub where the carpet is sticky, the beams are low and the only thing to eat is a packet of crisps that's been hanging behind the bar since 1983. The Head is that pub. We availed ourselves of some local cider but were soon attracted to the dartboard on the wall. The landlady must have quickly regretted handing over the darts, as Bec proceeded to scar the nearby walls, floor, ceiling, and nearly broke a window, but a bit more of the excellent cider soon got her radar back into line. Anthony also proved to have a technique that improved with alcohol and ran out the winner of our Round-The-World comp, but we vowed we'd return for a rematch. The landlady was unsure whether this was a positive development.

As night fell we took on the four-course meal and won, before sitting down to yet more competitive entertainment. This time, it was a game of Spot The Intro, a great little game Bec had spotted in Bath and bought for Amanda for Christmas. Although a very simple idea (put the CD on and identify excerpts from popular tunes of the last 40 years), it proved to be excellent fun, with the boys running out 2-1 winners over the girls thanks to Johnny's scary 80's pop music facility and Anth's frankly terrifying command of the Elton John domain.

Midnight came and went, with a great view of public- and privately-funded fireworks bursting over Bath, and the TV showing the monstrous display on the Thames in London. With the insane amount of alcohol we had allocated reduced to merely ludicrous levels, and the melodies of long-forgotten one-hit-wonders still echoing in our ears, we crashed out three hours into 2007, Greenwich Mean Time.

Wishing everyone a happy, safe and prosperous 2007!



(*) Bladud was a legendary swineherd who discovered that his pigs' leprosy was cured by the spring waters of Bath, cured his own leprosy, and built the first city here ... perhaps.