New Year's Eve PS

I've just remembered THE worst ever NYE. I was living with a boyfriend who had a cleanliness fetish. Every night he would go for a bath with his radio and a book and be in there at least an hour and a half. So I had the champagne on ice and told him to be sure and be downstairs before midnight to pop the champagne and wish me a happy new year. At 11.30 I gave him his first time check. Every ten minutes after, I gave him another. Then the bongs started and he was still in the bath. Then my tears started and it was 1985 and the champagne was unopened and I was as alone as I had ever been on all those NYE's in Soho.

Dear reader, you'll be glad to know I finished with him. And that was why.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009!!!!!

New Year's Eve

How I miss the New Year's Eves I had when I was younger. Evenings full of such expectation when my best friend and I would set off, eyes aglow, hearts aflame, wondering what sensual and alcoholic wonders the night had in store, who we would end up kissing, what new relationships would be starting. Invariably, we would end up in some dodgy pub in tears, having heard the countdown of Big Ben bongs in desperation because, instead of swaying in the romantic arms of the only good-looking guy in the room, we were being kissed by the sixty-year-old wrinkly friend of the landlord who was already inviting us to stay in his mozzie-ridden flat in Calpe. Oh, the disappointment and the expense of a 3 times the normal rate taxi home with a fuzzy head full of Irish navvies with road drills.

Now, in my dotage, I am sensible. I and my steady boyfriend go round to visit friends with a bottle, drink it (well, I do, he doesn't drink and so is able to drive me home, shrieking and swaying to Dancing in the Moonlight and maybe dribbling slightly, less from anticipation, more from senility), come home at 11 and watch Jules Holland, with a quick flip to bagpipes in Edinburgh for midnight itself. Then a (fairly) sober bed and a not very bad hangover in the morning. But oh, how I miss the expectation and excitement of New Year's Eve trips to the Sun and 13 Cantons, or whatever it was called, in Beak Street, Soho, in 1973. Sore head, sore feet, sore heart, but still with youth and hope on my side.

Confucius and cats

Confucius he say cat with whole bed to sleep on will choose clean washing instead. In this case Mr Grumpy's underpants. Fleas, please!

Buff weather

Everyone in our household is out of sorts today. Flad because, just as he was about to go out, he caught sight of another cat in the hedge. He bristled, then turned tail, this being the same cat with whom he had turned into a spitting, slashing, tumbling cat-ball a couple of weeks ago. He then asked to go out, tried to drink from his usual water supply (he likes a sludgy mixture of pond and rainwater with a few dead leaves to add je-ne-sais-quoi) and found it frozen solid. Wel, it is only 3 degrees C right now. I broke the ice for him, but he stalked off and began playing silly buggers, swiping at knot holed in the pine floorboards, pretending they were leaves, a game he always plays when discombobulated.

Mr G is out of sorts because every time his stomach rumbles, he thinks it's the onset of the bug I had on Sunday. We have now traced the source. As I suspected, it was the grandchildren of the friend I visited on Boxing Day. The two-year-old kindly spat out a piece of paper he'd been chewing and stuffed it into my hand. Nice. I heard yesterday that the kids have had the vomiting bug several times and keep reinfecting one another. It says on the health websites that you should quarantine yourself for 48 hours once symptoms have ceased. This means I can go back out into the world tomorrow...

Which brings me to my reason for being out of sorts. It's so bloody cold! And of course Mr G, as usual, won't have the heating on. Ten minutes ago I brought a cup of tea into my office. It has gone cold already. The keypads of my laptop feel cold. I am wearing: ordinary socks with thermal socks on top, and thermal slippers; thermal longjohns and thick tracky bottoms; thermal long-sleeved top, sweatshirt and fleecy tracksuit top; a buff.

Now, if you don't know what a buff is, oh, what joys you have in store. And no, it's nothing to do with getting your kit off, although I bet there is a place for a buff on a naturist! Go to http://www.buffwear.co.uk and you'll find various hilarious demonstrations by outdoorsy types showing how to wear them. Basically, a buff is a textile polo mint. A topless beanie. It's round with a hole for your head and it can be worn as a scarf, a hat, a jheadband, a solar kepi with flap to keep sun off neck, a balaclava, even a bra top and, if you have a big enough safety pin, I should imagine a pair of knickers, too. There are probably roles for the buff that are as yet undreamed of. Hamster's hammock? DIY fanbelt? Catapult sling? I'm sure my sister Merrylegs, who works in an outdoor clothing shop, can think up a few new ones. Come on, M, let's have your suggestions!

Bleeuuurgh!

You've heard about the 'winter vomiting bug?' You don't want to catch it, you really don't. It strikes out of the blue and you don't know which end to attend to first. In fact, you need to be sure that the rear end is on the loo at the same time the head is over a bucket, because 'projectile' is an understatement.

It struck me at 3 am on Sunday morning and I spent all yesterday wishing I were dead. Mr Grumpy kindly gave up his double bed and electric blanket and slept on the sofa with Flad. Or rather, didn't sleep because of Flad, who thought 4 am was breakfast time.

Now Mr G is huddled inside a sleeping bag as he thinks he's about to get it, too. He's warned me that if he does, I shall be searching for a new place to live before the New Year. That means tomorrow. Help!!!

My Christmas miracle

I have mentioned before about my mother's love of thrushes. I think I have told the story about how, after she had died, when my sister was on the phone to the vicar arranging the funeral service, I happened to glance out of the window into her garden, the garden of the house in Liverpool 18 that my sister and I had grown up in, and saw perched on the fence the biggest thrush I had ever seen. It had a magnificent speckled breast and its golden eyes stared straight into mine, fearlessly.

"Quick," I said to my sister, "get off the phone, you've got to see this!" But she waved me away and even though my pleadings and beckonings got more and more frantic, she continued her conversation for another ten minutes at least.

But when she'd finally finished and was telling me off for interrupting her when she was in the middle of something so important, I told her that I'd seen the biggest thrush ever and drew her to the window - and, amazingly, it was still there. That big bird locked eyes with each of us in turn, a powerful, searching look, then finally raised itself and took flight and sailed slowly and majestically off over the gardens and up into the sky.

"That was no thrush," said my ornithologist sister, "that was a hawk of some sort."

"But you don't get hawks in suburban Liverpool gardens, especially ones that sit there for so long," I pointed out. Then the penny dropped and we both stared at each other and knew for sure that it had been our mother who had come to see us both, perhaps to bid us farewell.

Last night, I woke some time after three. As I lay there hoping to get back to sleep, a bird started to sing a most beautiful song. I listened for a while, glanced at my clock which told me it was 3.38 am, then got up, walked to the window and looked out at the silver birch tree outside. The silver birch was Mum's favourite tree. The bird on it was a thrush, singing its heart out. I opened the curtain, gazed out into the clear, fine night and said, "Merry Christmas, Mum."

My Christmas wish

Me and Mum in the mid '80s

Yesterday, I found myself wishing with all my heart that I could have my mum and dad back for Christmas, just for one day, so we could enjoy Christmas dinner together. I wondered, if I wished hard enough, would I be able to see them there? And if they did come, would they look as they did when I last saw them in their eighties, or as they looked when I was young - healthy and active and good-looking, my mum with her softly waving, strawberry blonde hair, my dad with his horn-rimmed specs and impish grin. Yes, that would be it.

Mum would be wearing a purple jumper and the silver pendant in the shape of a swan that I bought for her on a stall in Hampstead at Xmas 1970. Dad would have on a green shirt and a fawn tank top knitted by Mum and both would be sporting paper hats, my mum having fought Dad for the yellow one. Dad would be laughing at his own puns, Mum making risque innuendos and hoping he wouldn't understand. The sherry would be brought out - just one apiece - and then the wine, usually supplied by me, and, as they didn't care a lot for wine, most it would find its way down my greedy gullet.

The grand opening of presents would be left till as late as possible in the day, when we had suffered enough from masochistic anticipation and just couldn't summon up the effort of will to postpone the suspense any longer. So at 4 pm, when the rest of the nation had either broken their gifts or put them safely away, we would be tearing at wrapping paper and revealing the goodies therein - books, records (no cd's or dvd's in those days), perfume, something hand-knitted from mum with her love for us in every stitch. A book of silly cartoons, poems about cats, calendars, tights, shirt and socks for Dad and a treat for Cloudy the cat. Liverpool Christmases I should have treasured at the time, but I was always too busy missing the latest boyfriend from whose side family duty had torn me. Christmases I treasure now that it's much too late.

So this Christmas I shall set two spare places at the table, one for Mum and one for Dad, and imagine them sitting there, laughing, eating and joking, and beam the love at them that I didn't give them then but I feel now, welling up in me, especially now that I have found their only grandchild, lost to adoption in 1969, re-met in 2006, a grandchild they were not lucky enough to meet. Happy Christmas to my family, reunited in my heart - and may all of you who have lost a loved one include them in your conversation, your thoughts and dreams, and keep them forever alive like a candle of love in your heart this festive season.