A Snapshot of New Year’s Eve

You only get around eighty of them. Here are the ones I can remember:

–  Watching the sun come up on what feels like a treehouse platform in the small town where they all support the team

–  Working at a club in Sheffield, slinging drinks and collecting glasses at time and a half. Policy is that you swig from a bottle of Asahi and do the occasional shot to keep going. The alcohol doesn’t hurt performance. You just sweat it out. The manager does a pep talk before service: ‘You have never seen a night like this’. Champagne from the houseman at the bells. Later, continues at the Boardwalk.

–  About twenty of my friends in Leeds Elsix, all but one of whom I have lost touch with, hired a cottage in the middle of North Yorkshire, Horton-in-Ribblesdale or some such place, and had a party there. Remember the next day the water failed and we had to gather snow to wash up.

–  In Amsterdam with my father and his friends, spent the night at a houseparty on one of the canals and then went out just before the bells to the main street where there’s maybe a big parade and everyone is setting off fireworks (never saw anyone in Amsterdam light a firework except on NYE) the canals seemed to blaze, I remember a five-year-old letting off firecrackers by the side of the road.

–  A few drinks in Fallowfield, then to an empty houseshare in Levenshulme where I saw in the bells with a book and a few glasses of Shiraz.

Thanks for coming this far. There are many more adventures ahead of us in 2011. Happy New Year and all the best!