The New Year is Here - and HOW

Hello there dear Whine-readers! And happy New Year! I hope you've all had the bestest of times and will continue to have even better times in the near and far future. I now want to share with you the story of my New Year's Eve, as I'm sure you really really want to hear about it. (In addition it is a little embarrassing and I like to tell embarrassing stories about myself.)

Well, my New Year's Eve started with me trying to get up at 8am to go to work for 10. That I did and work was really quiet. And then I heard that my shift the next day (ie. today in other words New Years Day) was cancelled because my managers had decided not to open the coffee shop that day at all. So I was all 'WOO, don't have to worry about not staying up too late or having a drink too many!' And then I also got a text from an ex-housemate saying that he'd managed to gather two more ex-housemates together and were hoping for me and the boy to join them for the night. So we did, even though we weren't mega-keen on the idea of going to a pub for New Year's Eve partly because I'd just earlier that day had a discussion about the bestest of ways to spend NYE and established that it was a house party with a select collection of people and perhaps going out to see some fireworks and mostly because the boy had completely lost his voice and would not be able to speak to people in a loud pub.

But off we went to Camden after having a wonderful pasta dinner at home with breaded mozzarella sticks. The pub we found our comrades in was very loud and had a New Year's Rockabilly Eve and, well, I wasn't happy. We got out of there and our local Camdener recommended we check out this pub in which he'd 'never seen more than two people in'. And it wasn't too busy or too loud and quite good music was actually played. We stayed there for three pints with the boy and then left to take the tube to central London, hoping to catch the fireworks by Westminster Bridge.

And this is where it gets a bit embarrassing and everything starts going a bit wrong. Silly me, didn't use the facilities in the pub before we left. I DIDN'T FEEL LIKE I NEEDED TO THEN! But on the tuby-tube after about two stops I started feeling like a piss would need to take place in the not so distant future. And as we went along I felt as though it would actually be needed very soon. Not to worry, we were going to get off at Waterloo and I thought it's a big station, it must have public toilets. As we stop at Waterloo, I'm pretty desperate already and my desperation is only worsened by the announcement which says 'this train will not stop at this station due to overcrowding'. OH BOLLOCKS! And we stay at the station for what seems to be ages and my desperation is ever-growing now with the added bonus of mild claustrophobia - which I never get, it seems it only happens when tipsy and needing a piss!.

So the tube takes of and the next stop is Kennington. I tell the boy I need to get out if there's no toilets at the station, and it's a small station so obviously people don't need to piss there. No toilets. Perhaps there'll be a pub or similar close to the station we can go in and I can use the toilet. But no, there's nothing. We walk down the street and turn in to a side street hoping that we'll find a dark enough alleyway I could squat down at, but no. I'm super-speed walking around to find something, anything that looks like it could be utilised. In my mind I'm planning on knocking random doors, but the chances of people letting strangers in is pretty slim, right? But behold! There's a house with an open door and people getting out as it is now about 10 to midnight. There's obviously a party thing going on and I approach the people standing in front of the house and very politely inquire whether I'd be able to use their facilities. And these are nice people! They show me to the bathroom (and what a bathroom! If only I wasn't so embarrassed and didn't want to do my business as quickly as possible I could've marvelled at it a bit more) and I wee and thank again and leave.

I come out of the house to find an annoyed looking boy waiting for me and we decide we've now missed our chance to see the fireworks and might just as well stick around to see the people from the house setting their own fireworks at the square they live by. But I feel a touch awkward standing around there so we leave and take the first bus towards Elephant & Castle. At least it's not really late and we can just go home. From the bus we can see people gathered at a crossing looking over to the north and we realise that we can see the London Eye all the way from here! WE get off the bus and join the crowd (of about 20 people) and we can actually see most of the fireworks there!

The fireworks finish and we decide to walk down the road a bit and realise we're actually only a few 100 metres from Elephant & Castle so we walk down and get on a bus home. Nearly get some KFC on the way but because of the queue we just decide to go home for some late night toast and sleep.

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So there, hope you enjoyed the story of my NYE. I have no promises for the new year, I've never really been into that kind of stuff. But I'll do an exception and promise that I shall write up that 'Obamania, take 2' post I've been brewing for ages now. There are a couple of others as well, one in particular that has to do with people and buses but we'll have to wait and see if and when I get around to writing them up.

Anyway, Happy New Year, may it be even better than the previous one!