2009, the year of the lemon cream.

One always hears about amazing parties and over the top ways of celebrating the new year. Opportunistic people normally use this event to take advantage of the masses by predicting Armageddon, releasing songs with '...2009...' in the lyrics, selling phony 2009 computer fixes... It's all good though. New years is probably the only event that is celebrated throughout the world by all people.

As the Earth rotates and 12:00 pm ticks over fireworks simultaneously light the night sky in every time zone. I really was amused at how competitive all of the big cities are with their fireworks. Every year the displays get bigger and bigger as they try to out compete each other. Watching some of the replays on TV I noticed that the displays have reached such a scale that nobody can actually see the fireworks after the first 3 or so seconds past midnight, there is just too much smoke from the first round of explosives.

New years celebrations tend to be tricky for me. The general trend is for people to get drunk and do...drunk people activities. Not an option for me (for obvious reasons). I've been to a few of these street parties and I was not particularly fond of being soaked in champagne (or in one case having beer poured onto my head and back) so I've avoided them for years.

My average new years consists of going home for a chat with my family, braai, a game of cards followed by a brief 'yay' at 12 and then bed (i've even fallen asleep while waiting for 12pm). This year was even less spectacular, I wasn't at home so I just played computer games till 12 and then decided I needed to do something else. I settled on having a cup of tea. It was a subtle rooibos and camomile blend with a hint of honey. Not nearly as wreckless as my previous experiences so I decided to have a buscuit too, a lemon cream.

YUM!

(Gosh! I am getting old.)