NYE in England

Mr Lukey has asked me to guest write for his blog again, and I'm thrilled and happy to do so :0)

It is a big honour to be asked not once, but twice to do this for anyone, not least as he has taken so much time and effort to make this a page worth reading as well as a valuable resource for anyone wanting to know how to travel painlessly and in comfort in Indonesia.

I have a small confession though, my brief was to write about Christmas in Blighty and put up some nice pictures; this I cannot do as I wasn't really paying much attention last week and didn't get my camera out. Sorry.

I can make a few notes about New Years though. I moved from London to Bristol in the UK a few weeks ago to be with my partner Mr ChrisP. From the short amount of time that I've spent here, I've discovered not a lot and, as such, wasn't holding out for a particularly exciting NYE. I did find a nice looking event at a place called the Southbank which was offering Swing Dance, some circus stuff and a Ska band; so off we went.

Turned out to be a lovely village hall kind of set up with a bar and a buffet; people of around our age group who wanted to have a nice night out and not get drunk and pass out in the middle of the M32 motorway by 8pm after glassing some random dog walker. Actually having fun things to do and interesting things to watch made for a decent distraction from ourselves and the wine list too.

The Aerial Silks lady:

Mr ChrisP has a very good habit of folding lots of little bits of paper into various animals and then leaving his trail of creative litter where ever we go.

The couple who shared our table ended up having an instructional session with him; this later escalated to balloon modelling (yes, we came with our usual bag of circus tricks), but for some reason I didn't make a record of the plethora of balloon dogs that came next.

The Ska Band was very good too, more melodic than shouty so kinder on the ears than other groups I've heard recently :0)

I drove us home at midnight, as once we had finished singing Alde Lasagna, some pissed bloke had decided to start smashing a chair into the floor and the back of Mr ChrisP's legs and break beer glasses at the same time.
I've had years and years of putting up with that behaviour, time to go home now.


We woke up this morning, New Years Day 2013, to find not a cloud in the sky and decided to go out to Weston Super Mare to go see The Sea.

Tide was out, so people were out on the sand getting their trainers soaked and the wind in their hair. We opted to go on The Grand Pier on the search for a cup of tea.

Ended up doing better than that though and found a posh Tiffany Tea Room and had a fancy pants Afternoon Tea there.

Also took the opportunity to play with the new 100x zoom binoculars we'd bought in the sales, you could see the fleas on a dog's back on the island of Steep Holme across the water.

And naturally Mr ChrisP couldn't resist his dose of ARRRR for the afternoon.

New Years Resolutions? Not made any. I guess I'll try to be happy this year, concentrate on making a place for myself in the West Country and may come and visit Mr Lukey in a few months time.

Stay well world :0)

And Happy 2013 xxx