I thought I'd best get my act together and write an 'End of Year' post - thankfully the Mayans were incorrect and it's not an 'End of World' post!
So, firstly, a recap of the last 2/3 weeks...
Christmas decorating:
(note the stack of Christmas films!)
(my awesome new advent calendar!)
(the only cats I couldn't get a photo of in hats were my own! I've got a lovely santa dress for them next year though!)
I've just realised that I forgot to get a photo of my Tigger jack in the box so that'll have to wait until next Christmas too!
However, I can (and have an overiding compulsion to) inflict my favourite Christmas song on you once again - in a gesture of goodwill I'll also include another festive favourite which hopefully won't be as painful!
Salt dough decorations:
Christmas Party:
No photos of this one but it was a very good night, food was good, entertainment was also good and there was even a Prince Charming who left behind his hat rather than a glass slipper!
Now I feel the need to explain...there was a chap at another table and I noticed he was wearing a rather fetching hat, I told Kevin and Ray that I'd have that hat by the end of the night, Anna and I spotted said chap leaving early and as he was about to hop in his taxi Anna asked him where he'd got the hat, I told him it was awesome and he kindly gave me the hat before disappearing into the night.
Masquerade Ball:
Not really a ball at all and quite disappointed at the lack of effort made by the majority of participants, as I couldn't find a mask I liked to go with my outfit I spent an hour drawing on my face and adding various shades of purple eyeshadows, purple glitter and sticking sparkly things to my face - it looked fantastic but unfortunately the only photos I have so far are on my ridiculously small mobile phone so they don't really clearly show anything!
Other festive stuff:
The St. Mike's light switch on was as lovely and emotional as usual, shopping and lunch with Bernie was the usual combination of a brief period of frustrated shopping followed by lunch and laughter, pre Christmas get together with Kevin and Ken, a bucket of KFC and Mrs Brown's Boys was fun, the Harrogate Gilbert & Sullivan Society and Brighouse and Rastrick Band Christmas concert at the Royal Hall with Kevin was absolutely fantastic (in fact we enjoyed it that much that we've already got it booked in for next year's festive activities!) as was lunch at The Montpellier with Kevin the next day. A lovely suprise at the end of a full festive weekend - carol singers! They were working their way around the streets at the top of Otley Road - I went down to listen and give them a donation and they asked me to join them on the next road down, so I did! Fantastic :-)
Christmas Eve/Day and Boxing Day:
We all had a lovely time at Pops and Olives, every meal was beautiful and I really wish I'd taken a photo of Christmas dinner! We were all spoilt rotten but I managed to find a home for almost everything when I got back home on Boxing Day - just in time for Bernie to come back to mine for some nibbles, wine and a film (Rock of Ages - a bit odd but, to my surprise, found myself enjoying it! Also, Tom Cruise...under normal circumstances, no, in this film, hell yes!).
And now, a recap in general...
Most visitors: January (largely my own fault as I really haven't made much effort this year)
Most visiting country: UK followed by USA with Russia coming in third place (the reason may be obvious shortly)
Most viewed post: Pretend to be a Secret Agent (told you), which is actually a post from last year! In fact in the top 10 viewed posts this year only one of them is actually from this year - a disturbing amount seem to be read as a result of people looking at photos of my feet on google!
It's been a bizarre old year, I was thinking to myself that not much has really happened and I haven't really done anything but, on looking back through the (woefully small number of) posts I have made this year it seems I'm wrong! I had photo's taken by the talented Nicola Radford, went to two Mirabelle's wine tasting evenings, saw my first proper musical, went to a classical concert, had a lovely Easter, dressed as a clown and appeared in the paper 3 times (including the front page!), saw a magic dragon, finally had a murder mystery party, paid my loan off, celebrated the Jubilee, Eurovision and Canada day in style, enjoyed (apart from the jelly babies) a great experimental cooking day, watched NYPD Blue in its entirity, discovered Charlie's Place and with it a little adopted family, made some mistakes and learnt some lessons along the way.
Facebook has a handy little thing which creates a collage of some of your posts throughout the year, here's mine!
And the good news is that Bernie bought me next year's diary!
I'm going to attempt to post on average about once a week (and I will have to juggle some days around - why on earth put 'Pull an All-nighter Day' on a week night?!) but we'll see how it goes. I'll also try to change the font after recieving feedback that my (excessive) exclamation points look like the letter l - I've already tried but I seem to be able to change the font on every aspect of the page/posts except the main body of text!!!
So, Happy New Year to all, family, friends, acquaintences and those of you I've never even met - may 2013 see your dreams stay big and your worries stay small.
"New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights."
Hamilton Wright Mabie
No comments:
Post a Comment