Day 57: Take the Pace

Very hungover.  Way too hungover.  It's New Year's Day, but on New Year's Eve.  This is exactly what happened last year, with exactly the same people, and we have not learned our lesson (twats).  The well-trodden path to recovery.  Small reliable steps - water, breakfast, shower, clean teeth, long walk, big coffee, cheese toastie, another long walk.  Some of the steps are harder to face than others, but all are necessary.

The second walk is impromptu and beautiful.  Past the boatyards to the river.  The sun is setting on the last day of the year in dramatic style, and the breadth of the estuary allows for expansive skies.  The light fades quickly, and we are in darkness, with a bright nail clipping of a moon shining through the tree branches.  Unsure of the route, we take a wrong turn and end up cutting through a wood, and spooking ourselves with Blair Witch talk.  Eventually sounds of traffic lead us to a road, and human life.  Including a man, sat outside his house in the dark, reading in the beam of his head torch, and a woman who has chosen to decorate her child's pushchair with fairy lights.  The Woodbridge equivalent to the Blackpool illuminations. 

A slow easing into the evening, responsibly drinking water at sensible intervals.  The priority is to avoid a repeat of this morning's pain tomorrow.  An evening of many parts.  Food.  Beer pong (ping pong with beery forfeits).  Fireworks.  Less rocket, more bazooka - we vulgarly trounce the genteel neighbourhood efforts, amidst raucous cheering.  The 'bongs' on the radio - more vulgar whooping and many big hugs.  Champagne.  Dancing (Mandy wishes to be spun like a top, and we make it so).  Guitars and singing.  More dancing.  Lighting a camp fire in the garden.  A blind rum-off - smell first, then taste (which is the premium 7-year old Havana?  The 3 year old?  The cooking rum?).  More dancing. 

This is unbelievable.  I am PACING myself.  I am drunk enough to cheese it up on the dance floor to 80s classics, but still together enough to stand (without swaying) in the kitchen, arguing (without slurring) the case for freedom of speech on the internet.  I'm not sure I've ever managed this balance before on New Year's Eve.  It's always been either coldly and disappointingly sober (rarely), or disgustingly messy (frequently).

Bed at half three.  I ACTUALLY drink water before I go to sleep.  UNBELIEVABLE.  I think I may have learned my lesson.  (Finally...)

Happy New Year.