Not a Review of the Year

Of course, I would go and get the cold halfway through my week off, wouldn’t I? Yes, another cold: I really know how to enjoy myself, you know, don’t anyone say I don’t. I’ve spent most of today in bed, most of yesterday in bed and, in short, I finished work on the 23rd feeling tired, run down and desperately in need of a break, and I’ll be starting back next week feeling exactly the same, only worse. Go, me!

Interestingly enough (and by “interestingly” I mean “this isn’t interesting at all, not even a little bit, but hell, there’s still a couple of hours to go before I can start drinking, so I’m going to tell you anyway”), this is the latest in a long line of New Year’s Eve colds, the most dramatic being the flu that arrived on December 28th, 1999, and cleared up on January 1st, 2000, so while everyone else was partying like it was, well, 1999, I was shivering in bed with a lemsip. God, I hate New Year. HATE IT. You know how everyone always goes on about how the Scots celebrate New Year’s Eve like nowhere else on earth, and it’s, like, the most amazing night of the whole entire year up here? Don’t believe it. We celebrate by watching Jools Holland’s Hogmanay Boredom Fest on TV, just like everyone else I know, and if there’s anything more miserable than watching other people partying, why, I don’t know what it is. At midnight we switch over to the “Live From Edinburgh Castle!” show, where a solitary piper plays a lonesome lament. It never fails to make me more depressed than the rest of the year put together, and having the cold for New Year’s Eve? Well, that’s just the icing on the cake, isn’t it?

Actually, this New Year’s Eve is already looking a little bit more exciting than normal. So far most of the street parties have been cancelled due to foul weather: right now a hurricane force gale is blowing around the house in a very dramatic “it was a dark and stormy night” kind of way, and ten minutes ago our neighour’s fence blew right down and began a stately progress towards OUR garden, joined a few minutes later by the fence belonging to the house on the other side of it*. A few minutes ago, Terry caught our three wheelie bins making their way down the driveway, presumably off to some New Year’s Eve celebration for wheelie bins that will be BETTER THAN OUR CELEBRATION, probably. If the house is still standing when we get home tonight, colour me amazed.

Anyway, I was going to do an “Amber’s review of 2006” thing here, but I feel like crap, the lights keep flickering ominously, and those fences look like they’ll be joining us in the kitchen any minute now, so I totally can’t be bothered. (Also: that’s what the archives are there for.) Here, have a picture of my dog dressed as Yoda instead:

HAPPY NEW YEAR 🙂

* ETA: Now our fence has joined them, too! How unexpectedly exciting!