Happy New Year

So 2014 year draws to its close and we look forward to a bright 2015 and a fresh year, full of its own challenges ahead.
Time was when I would look forward to New Year’s Eve, with at least equal enthusiasm to Christmas, and usually with the chance to celebrate  at home or the promise of a swell party to see in the new year.
But I guess as age catches up on you, you tend think back more on the year gone by rather the prospect of the new challenges of the year ahead.
Don’t get me wrong. I still enjoy New Year celebrations though perhaps they are a little moderated than some of the past.
There were those times when it was expected that we as a family would host a party on NYE, and at the time we enjoyed a relationship with a particular theatre, which meant that our parties always included the dance girls and fellas from whatever pantomime was on at the time.  Another time we saw in the New Year from the rooftop of that same theatre.  And then there were the happy times we have spent in Italy and France for New Year, watching fireworks from a penthouse roof garden overlooking Milan, or fireworks in the street and in both countries celebrating with a magnificent NYE meal.
The one and probably only downside I recall was that after one of the parties with the chorus line, I needed to be on duty as a journalist to meet a passenger ship arriving from Cape Town at 5.30am on New Year’s Day, and knowing that I had an early morning interview with the captain in prospect.
So this evening a well deserved change of scene in a quiet meal at home, conversation with friends and paying allegiance to our Italian family connections with a rather special bottle of Prosecco.  Maybe we will go French tomorrow with Champagne.

Buon anno!  Bonne annee!  Gluckliches neues jahr!  Feliz ano Nuevo!  Szczesliwego nowego roku!  
Oh yes . . . A Happy and Prosperous New Year to all our friends!