Happy New Year

So, it's 9.30pm on New Year Eve, 2010, and I'm in bed, laptop on my, um, lap, getting ready to turn in. No wild parties for me - kids and middle age put an end to that.

I justifiy the lack of  night life by telling myself that I partied enough between the ages of 16 and 30 that I pretty much wore myself out. And, you know what, I don't even miss it that much.

I've had some interesting New Year's Eves in my time. I have memories of being a kid, at the Tuncurry Caravan Park and being allowed to stay up till midnight. My cousins and I used to tie tin cans to pieces of rope and run around the park, making such a racket, I'm surprised no-one throttled us.

Then there was New Years Eve, 1984, when some of my more erudite friends rented out room 101 at a Delhi Hotel and threw a fairly wild party. Boy did we think we were clever..Room 101, 1984...but just because a high schooler is well read, doesn't mean he or she is won't pass out drunk in the bathtub (I'm looking at you, Hugo!).

There are also some that are memorable for the wrong reasons. Like the millenium New Years. There I was, at work, waiting for the electricity system to fail. It didn't and I got to send out a "nothing happening" press release at 2am.

And there are those New Years' I'd rather forget . Years at street parties, house parties, on the beach, at pubs. Mostly trying really hard to have the Best. Time. Ever. And usually failing. There's such pressure on that one night!

I guess I should mention the best New Years (in case the Winemaker is reading). It was December 31, 1995, wth my two girlfriends, spying a couple of good lookers across a not-very-crowded bar. I believe my friend offered them a slow comfortable screw (the cocktail - get your minds out of the gutter!). We got chatting, we exchanged details, I whipped their arses in Daytona 500, and six years later, I married one of them.

A lot has happened in those 15 years, there have been ups and downs and some big challeges to overcome, but I wouldn't change a thing. Happy anniversary to my best friend.