New Year's Eve itself ended up being a lovely mishmash of friends from different areas of my life who had never met. One friend brought her pet sausage dog so, obviously, we all giggled and cooed and bonded over that.
After a lot of sitting around, we finally started cooking, using my favourite Michel Roux cookbook, and produced an extremely tasty dish called 'poussin scented with ginger and lemongrass.' I liked it because it sounded a bit Mastercheffy.
The poussin was with steamed broccoli, fried rocket leaves (tastier than it sounds) rice and a sauce made from the ginger and lemongrass and leftover chicken stuff.
For dessert, we made poached cherries with rice pudding, which I cooked on high speed, as it was getting late, so wasn't quite up to Michel's standards. I imagine he'd eliminate me from the semi finals for my speedy cooking methods. O well. It was tasty anyway.
We then got our warm coats on and drove to Richmond Park, parking outside and walking inside, to a point we knew was quite high so we would have a fabulous view over London for the fireworks. We found ourselves a good spot and waited for the celebrations to begin.
It was fantastic when they did start. In almost every direction, in any gap between the trees, we could see fireworks displays happening in all different parts of London. We had a view to our left towards the park gate and saw, occasionally, fireworks going off in different places across Surrey. In front of us were the fireworks at the South Bank in central London, and behind us were displays in other parts of South West London. They went on for a little while and we cracked open our bottle of prosecco and passed around the single glass I had grabbed in a hurry when leaving the house, like poor students sharing bad wine before a night out.
After the fireworks displays had finished and the sausage dog had calmed down (there were lots of other dogs in the park and she had become very excited), we wandered back home and watched a bit of TV before giving up for the evening. It was all very lovely and civilised.
And now, time to make some new year's resolutions, mainly so they are recorded somewhere so that I am obliged, sort of, to keep them. Ok, here goes.
- Plan a trip to Namibia
- Plan a trip to Asia
- Eat more ethically, especially with meat
- Finish all the books I'm in the middle of
- Revamp the wardrobe a little
- Say yes to social engagements (instead of my default setting, which is no cause I'm lazy)
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