New Year's Eve tomorrow and yet our little market town was so very quiet today. The shops were almost empty - no queueing like Christmas Eve - and there was hardly any Market. (Friday is our Market Day).
It does seem as though the tradition of staying up to see in the New Year is fading. I still like to do it and usually have a little nap in the afternoon so that I can manage to stay awake until the clock strikes the Midnight hour.
My big parties (40 people with me cooking a whole salmon and half a ham) are over a few years ago. For a start many of the friends who came have passed away, some are disinclined to come out now they are older and I no longer feel like all the work involved. (sorry I have gone into italics - don't know how and certainly don't know how to correct it!)
So tomorrow evening it will just be the farmer and me, my son and his wife, my friend W and (I hope) friend A, although I am not sure whether or not he will be with us.
Today I have made a large shepherd's pie which we shall eat with red cabbage (cooked with apple and onion and brown sugar), sprouts and peas.
We shall follow this with a choice of Christmas pudding with ice cream or cream, Christmas cake with a selection of cheese or a pineapple pavlova which I made this afternoon. It has somewhat disintegrated on its removal from the oven, but I shall reconstruct it with cream and pineapple (hopefully).
We shall sit and chat until a couple of minutes before the start of the New Year and then have a drink to welcome it in. But of course (and this may well be another reason why no-one celebrates at parties any more) as they are all driving home then it will not be an intoxicating drink.
But the important thing to say is that I wish each and every one of you a happy and healthy New Year for 2017 and let us all hope for peace around the world and less suffering for the millions who have seen years of war.
Thank you and New Year's greeting to you too.
ReplyDeleteYour dinner party sounds lovely.
ReplyDeleteThank You and Happy New Year to you and your family and friends.
cheers, parsnip
It sounds like a cozy party. Happiness to all.
ReplyDeleteI like to stay up too, Pat, - usually my daughter manages to be here for the witching hour, leaving whatever event she is at to see the New Year in with me, which I appreciate so very much... and sometimes one of the boys will drop in for auld lang syne. We spent at least forty New Year's Eves with dear friends who are now both gone, along with my dearest, so I try to look forward as well as back into memory land. I do wish you and the Farmer a happy and contented 2017 - cherish the days...
ReplyDeleteIm working tomorrow night so i shall say my new year greetings now xxxx
ReplyDeleteWe call it Old Year's Night here. I will not be staying up.
ReplyDeleteI am really enjoying your blog. So a Happy New Year from to you and I echo all your sentiments.
ReplyDeleteHave the best new year's celebration. It sounds delicious. Only thing I know I'll be having is blackened peas and bacon. Guarantee's luck for the new year;)
ReplyDeleteI've been so so lazy today it's been insane. Very very tired. So foggy today I've not been able to see a thing
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you and the Farmer, we'll be at home, no more going out to celebrate.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you and the Farmer !!! Thank you for your New Year's wish and i wish the same for you! We have an even slower pace New Year's than you. It will just be Hubby and i... some years we make it to midnight and some years we don't ... There was a day we had friends over and played games until midnight.... those were the fun years for me... After Thanksgiving and Christmas no one felt like a big meal.... sometimes it was pizza ordered in... Hubs and i used to toast in the New Year with champagne...hubby put orange juice in his... but now we don't drink... no special reason why...just kind of lost the taste for it over the years... Would love to have friends to play games with again... maybe that will happen again one day... Hugs! deb
ReplyDeleteThank you, Pat. Happy New Year to you and the Farmer as well. I am looking forward to reading your blog posts in the new year; they are always a treat to read. Even if I don't comment very often, you are always thought provoking and interesting. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year over there in Yorkshire! Really enjoy your blog.
ReplyDeleteThank you Weaver Pat for your good wishes for the New Year and all the best to you for 2017. The disintegrating pav. might be just right to be converted to a pineapple Eton Mess!
ReplyDeleteAlphie
I try to stay up to watch Jools Holland, but invariably go to bed!
ReplyDeleteI know that you'll be enjoying it far more than me Pat, so Happy New Year to the two of you, hope you stay well throughout next year.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you. I know I shan't be able to stay up much past half past 9, and it's just us two here now our eldest daughter and her boyfriend (and Yorkshire Puss) have gone back home to Yorkshire.
ReplyDeleteThat Pineapple Pavlova sounds delish!
I wont be staying up, I wish you both a happy and healthy 2017
ReplyDeleteThank you, and a happy new year to you and the Farmer.
ReplyDeleteGreetings Maria x
Thanks everyone. Here's to blogging in 2017
ReplyDeleteYour party sounds nice, and I love the idea of a big Shepherd's Pie!
ReplyDeleteThere will be seven of us at my sister's tonight, just my parents, myself and O.K. plus a friend of my sister's and the same friend of my mother's who always celebrates Christmas Eve with us. We will eat Fondue and play games and talk and enjoy champagne at midnight to welcome 2017. From my sister's balcony, we should be able to see some fireworks over our hometown, and we may join the neighbours on the street with sparklers - no noisy rockets for us, we're not spending money on that.
O.K. and I almost always stay up well past midnight when we're spending weekends together, so it won't be unusual for us tonight. We will be walking to my sister's, so no need to stay away from the bubbly stuff :-)
Happy New Year to you and your loved ones, Pat!
I echo your sentiments in the last paragraph of your post, and wish you and the farmer a Happy and Healthy New Year. Your supper party sounds lovely, but I shall go to bed at my usual time as I can't stay awake any longer! We were never used to seeing in the New Year as, in our youth, we both worked in banks and the books had to be balanced at the end of each year, which meant the staff working until midnight and sometimes beyond.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year.Have enjoyed reading your posts this year,always think of you when we pass through your village on the way to Leyburn.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you and the farmer.I enjoy reading your blog so much.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to both of you, we shall not be staying up, but enjoy your party atmosphere. See you in the New Year ;) X
ReplyDeleteHappy new year to you and yours. My Mr has gone off for a 16 mile walk, last 16 of 2016, he's dreading 2025 when he'll be so much older and the walk much longer. We shall stay up to see the new year in though one of us will probably be asleep in the chair. All the best.
ReplyDeleteYour posts are such a delight. I love your writing and the way that you allow faraway folks like myself to have insights into what life is like in wonderful Yorkshire. I've gained a much better appreciation of the farming year, and have so enjoyed your reports of your weekly activities, particularly the poetry group's meetings...and those delicious lunches!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year! xo
I also enjoy getting together with friends on New Years Eve. My friends always have a wonderful gathering. We will eat, visit, laugh and play board games until the midnight hour. Even all of our children come as they have grown up together.
ReplyDeleteI don't always comment, but I enjoy your blog very much. Thank you for sharing your life and views! Wishing you a very healthy and happy new year!
Things will not be as quiet as you imagine from now on Mrs Weaver. The paparazzi will soon be gathering at your garden gate for you, madam, are The Laughing Horse Senior Blogger of the Year for 2016! Please come over to my blog to find out more.
ReplyDeleteHappy new year, hope the pineapple pudding was OK!
ReplyDeleteLast night - a couple of glasses of expensive champagne at 10.00 and bed by 10.45. Sleeping well until 11.55 when the very loud and relentless barrage of fireworks begun. Just think, in a time when people are supposed to be hard up, how much money gets sent up into the sky for what, to noisily say "Happy New Year". 12.05 got up to console a panicking dog. 12.30 back in bed and trying to sleep but odd burst of fireworks until 1.30 kept waking me. Yes, I know, I'm supposed to enjoy it for old time's sake, well I din't and have been shattered all day. thank gawd it's all over.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you, the Farmer, and of course Tess.
ReplyDeleteNot sure about this 'Laughing Horse' thingy!
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone. One of the benefits of being a bit remote is that if there were any
fireworks locally we didn't hear them.
And yes thankyou - the Pavlova mended nicely by being cemented with cream!
Pat, You click on the little pencil at the bottom of your post to go to edit. The you drag your mouse over the italics to turn the italics you want to change to blue. Then you click on the symbol / in the little box in top centre of the edit bar. Then you click Update. And hey presto! By the way, I wish you and your farmer a happy, healthy and jolly New Year!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your Laughing Horse award Pat, I love reading your blog, and enjoying your bucolic part of the world.
ReplyDeleteWishing you and the farmer the Happiest and Healthiest of New Years !
~Jo
Please come over to my blog to find out more.
ReplyDeleteทางบ้าน