My New Years Eve

New Years Eve leaves me cold.

The past few years I have either been travelling and obliged to pay a small fortune for the hotel celebration or gone to San Lorenzo Fuoriporta in Wimbledon with my godson and his mother.

I prefer the latter option but best of all to be in my own company and in bed at my normal hour of early retirement.

The late afternoon was marred by two events.

I was expecting and paid for delivery of some crucial supplies from the vet. Sod’s law the time I went for my stroll was the time when delivery was non-effected.

You might have thought the deliverer would have had my number to contact me or contact the vet or leave a note but he did none.

It was only later in calling the vet that I had read to me his note in the computer that there was nowhere safe to leave the package.

Of course there is and Amazon packages are frequently left for me and others.

In calling the vet a second time all my lights went out. I am familiar that this tripping can normally be corrected in the fuse box but in total darkness this is not a simple procedure.

Fortunately we have a helpful security office manned 24 hours a day and a chap came round promptly and – as God said – “let there be light”.

It went a second time but this time I had my torch and was on the job.

I had a call scheduled with a old friend at 6.00pm.

I informed him of the electricity problem. My friend, who readily admits like me not to being practical in such matters, has a wife who is.

My p/a Polly is so too and can repair basic appliance problems.

Conversely, whilst I can cook, iron, launder – all of which I did yesterday – I admit to hopelessness in regard to any handyman (should not this be handyperson?) issues.

I had a Dickens of a job opening an obdurate tin of caviar I had kept for the New Years Eve dinner. I also opened a costly Brunello di Montalcino.

I can tell the difference between a £5 and £25 bottle of wine but not between a £25 and £85 one.

I decided to play a CD collection of American songbook numbers I had been persuaded to buy by Amazon.

My radio station of choice is Classic FM for light classical music but on it Moira Stewart was interviewing John Cleese on creativity which was of minimal interest to me and accompanied by banal ads.

The songs on the CD were often sung at the Golden Eagle pub in Marylebone by Geoff who in another persona is the National Rust web designer and guru.

I became nostalgic for past evenings at the Golden Eagle though I cannot imagine it would have been open very often last year.

The music brought back another memory.

My late parents lived in a town house between 1964 and 1979.

The lounge was very sixties in decor: blue velvet sofa and a high chair in matching colour with thin legs.

Along one wall ran a series of cabinets with different coloured doors housing a TV, bar and audio system.

One  New Year Day my late mother and I were listening to Cole Porter and drinking champagne cocktails.

It was a serendipitous moment.

My mother, who had a total recall memory, would remember the song and the contents of our conversation but it’s too late now to ask her.

My conclusion was that – like the year – I’m pleased the day and night is over and behind me.