We became the parade on the streets that we once cleaned
Happy new year! Hope everybody had a fantabulous time, whatever you were doing. I had more laughter than I've ever had on a New Year before, as mrbuttmonkey and casualty_7 made the trip North to see me. As I managed to get everything done at work quickly, I managed to escape at 1.40 and was home in plenty of time to have a shower and tidy up a bit before they arrived.
The hilarity started immediately with Alison stuck on my steps with her suitcase, and it just went on from there! We stored all of the drinks in the outhouse and then settled in front of the fire, watching The Only Way Is Essex in HD and Josh Groban hosting Buzzcocks, as well as a good chunk of Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, before we ventured out into Tad to collect our Chinese.
After we'd eaten far too much and started on the drinking, we played the Glee board game Alison got for Christmas. Ryan and I only agreed to play if we didn't have to do any of the singing or dancing questions! I didn't expect to laugh so hard, it was brilliant - mostly because we were making our own fun with it!
Just before New Year, I sent Alison outside with a lump of coal and a tub of salt so she could be our official First Foot - Mam and I long ago abandoned any belief that the gender of the First Foot mattered in the slightest so it was nice to have somebody do it who doesn't live here! Alison was excited to be an important part of the ceremony, and if the year sucks, it's her fault ;)
We watched Fireworks on TV, Alison made us sing Auld Lang Syne (though mostly it was Alison singing and Ryan and I just doing the joining hands part) and then we ventured across the road to the cricket field to set off some Chinese lanterns. But shock horror! It was LOCKED! There was a padlock! So we thought about it for a bit, and ended up doing it from the car park. There was wind, there was lanterns with holes burnt into them, there was things that wouldn't light and then were too much alight, and there were ripped lanterns... and then there were blue flashing lights and Ryan and Alison were planning their escape route for the police coming to arrest us! Then the lights went away and I assume they were just going back to the station at the top of the road. But we went home very scared and giggling at the tale of "Remember that time at new year when we almost got arrested?"
We sat around drinking Winter Pimms until almost 3am, watching Criminal Minds and being bemused at the number of Government Adverts playing at that time of day (like this and this)!
Today Alison and Ryan stayed for lunch, and we watched The Soup. It was Alison's first time watching and it was absolutely brilliant fun watching it as a group! They left around 2.30.
Sunderland had a home game today, and it's the first time in over 10 years I've missed a home league game because I've decided not to go, as opposed to because I was busy doing something else (plays/cons/holidays/parties). So I decided to spent the whole day pretending I was living in the Likely Lads and avoiding the score. I succeeded! I closed Twitter and Facebook at 3pm, only texted people who wouldn't tell me the score, and sat watching stuff we had on the Sky box with Mam. When I watched the highlights programme tonight and we'd won 3-0 I was thrilled! It was like watching a live match but with none of the boring bits!
So tomorrow is going to be a day of nothing. I have no real resolutions for 2011, though I do want to try and post more. Last year I managed to post every day til about the 10th of January and then it all went downhill, so this year I'm trying to beat that, even just by a day!
I need to book tickets for Jonathan Woodward's play, and to think about starting to decide which phone I want when my contract expires later this month. But mostly just sleep, and maybe finding some more pictures to put on my digital photo frame. And continuing to try to clear off the Sky box before all the TV comes back this week.
The hilarity started immediately with Alison stuck on my steps with her suitcase, and it just went on from there! We stored all of the drinks in the outhouse and then settled in front of the fire, watching The Only Way Is Essex in HD and Josh Groban hosting Buzzcocks, as well as a good chunk of Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, before we ventured out into Tad to collect our Chinese.
After we'd eaten far too much and started on the drinking, we played the Glee board game Alison got for Christmas. Ryan and I only agreed to play if we didn't have to do any of the singing or dancing questions! I didn't expect to laugh so hard, it was brilliant - mostly because we were making our own fun with it!
Just before New Year, I sent Alison outside with a lump of coal and a tub of salt so she could be our official First Foot - Mam and I long ago abandoned any belief that the gender of the First Foot mattered in the slightest so it was nice to have somebody do it who doesn't live here! Alison was excited to be an important part of the ceremony, and if the year sucks, it's her fault ;)
We watched Fireworks on TV, Alison made us sing Auld Lang Syne (though mostly it was Alison singing and Ryan and I just doing the joining hands part) and then we ventured across the road to the cricket field to set off some Chinese lanterns. But shock horror! It was LOCKED! There was a padlock! So we thought about it for a bit, and ended up doing it from the car park. There was wind, there was lanterns with holes burnt into them, there was things that wouldn't light and then were too much alight, and there were ripped lanterns... and then there were blue flashing lights and Ryan and Alison were planning their escape route for the police coming to arrest us! Then the lights went away and I assume they were just going back to the station at the top of the road. But we went home very scared and giggling at the tale of "Remember that time at new year when we almost got arrested?"
We sat around drinking Winter Pimms until almost 3am, watching Criminal Minds and being bemused at the number of Government Adverts playing at that time of day (like this and this)!
Today Alison and Ryan stayed for lunch, and we watched The Soup. It was Alison's first time watching and it was absolutely brilliant fun watching it as a group! They left around 2.30.
Sunderland had a home game today, and it's the first time in over 10 years I've missed a home league game because I've decided not to go, as opposed to because I was busy doing something else (plays/cons/holidays/parties). So I decided to spent the whole day pretending I was living in the Likely Lads and avoiding the score. I succeeded! I closed Twitter and Facebook at 3pm, only texted people who wouldn't tell me the score, and sat watching stuff we had on the Sky box with Mam. When I watched the highlights programme tonight and we'd won 3-0 I was thrilled! It was like watching a live match but with none of the boring bits!
So tomorrow is going to be a day of nothing. I have no real resolutions for 2011, though I do want to try and post more. Last year I managed to post every day til about the 10th of January and then it all went downhill, so this year I'm trying to beat that, even just by a day!
I need to book tickets for Jonathan Woodward's play, and to think about starting to decide which phone I want when my contract expires later this month. But mostly just sleep, and maybe finding some more pictures to put on my digital photo frame. And continuing to try to clear off the Sky box before all the TV comes back this week.