There's no place like home

Probably the dullest New Year's Eve ever, with the blandest of photos to illustrate a day spent at home alone, watching the snow constantly fall but never settle.  By the time I went to bed however, it had turned into the most wretched New Year ever, so as it turns out, merely being bored was a blessing. 

Robin joined me mid-evening to see in the New Year with a brief visit to one of the gaudy Turkish TV tinsel time shows for the twelve o'clock count down, after which I settled to watch the last Harry Potter movie on UK TV to wait out the three hours for UK midnight - always the real "New Year's" for me, when I will raise a glass with my bro in Essex, together in spirit if not in Chelmsford, make a toast for Mum and Dad and all things that were, are, and hopefully may be, in a better 2017.

01:30 - Robin and I are both commenting on FB about the frantic wail of sirens we can hear from our apartments. Facebook is often the fastest way to find out what's happening here. 

02:00: It is now known that there is a gunman in one of the popular nightclubs in (very) nearby Ortakoy, and that people are seriously hurt. The sirens are close and constant, clearly heard above Harry Potter saving Hogwarts in some kind of surreal surround sound. 

03:00: Big ben strikes the hour and London lights up. I raise my glass and bro and I text each other "Happy New Year".  I take photos of London's spectacular fireworks from the TV and then check Facebook for an update.  Oh dear God.

By the time I go to bed at 04.30, it is 35 dead and more than 40 wounded and the gunman is on the run. I can't write my Blip tonight. I don't know where to begin. *

It seems so superficial to mention that today closes my fourth year of daily Blip journal, but I would like to thank my lovely Blip friends for their congrats on my actual 1460th blip yesterday (due to 2016 being a leap year).  Finding this community of kindness on 1st January 2013 is one of the most blessed things that has happened to me.  


*Today's entry written on 1st Jan