Normally, New Year’s Eve is spent in the company of Jools Holland and his Hootenanny, a few G&Ts, then watching our mad Polish neighbours recreate the Sydney pyrotechnics between two rows of town houses.
We then reward their frankly insane behaviour with a bottle of port.
I’m not that bothered with NYE, but the simple fact is attempting sleep would be pointless when a combination of gunpowder and sulphur is set to explode just east of your left eardrum at midnight.
But this NYE feels different. Strangely morose. And I’ve worked out why. I’m in mourning. For 2012.
Seven years I longed for this summer to arrive – our Olympic summer. And it was wonderful. Truly wonderful.
I will be forever grateful that my dearest husband – a conservative sort – went with my crazy desire to throw financial caution to wind and buy tickets for as many events as we could.
Between us, we saw 16 Olympic sports and half-a-dozen Paralympic sports, plus the Paralympic closing ceremony.
I still cry at the highlights. I was worried about going to see Sports Personality of the Year (more mad ticket-buying) because the Environment Agency may have had to issue a salt water flood warning in the vicinity of ExCel. Emeli Sande’s Read All About It PtIII and Coldplay’s Paradise still send shivers down my spine.
I don’t want to let go of 2012. But the clock is ticking. The last embers are flickering. I know we have to part. But what sweet sorrow. Such sweet sorrow.
