Leaping into 2024

 

New Year's Day - Stony

New Year's Eve is so "yesterday" now. I have given up wishing people Happy New Year.  It seems an age since I was dancing my way into 2024 and I have nothing particularly unsual to report apart from my sticking to a "dry January" and it doesn't seem much different from my normal behaviour. I must remember to have a drink come February. I am back to swimming again so I am almost into a routine.

Sammi is now elsewhere and his friends who came to my place to see in the New Year with him have returned home. My life is very quiet once more. His friends were from his uni days at St Andrews but they are now settled in London, so for them, it wasn't a big hike to visit Cosgrove for a couple of days. My little house had Sammi, three friends and two dogs for New Year. It was bursting at the seams.

While I was off having a very tame celebration, Sammi stayed home, made a curry, drank copious amounts of alcohol and played games with his friends. They set off for the Barley Mow just as it was closing at 1pm and this is where their collective judgement rather let them down. We all know that a few drinks increases our perceived ability and so it was for Mish, who thought he could leap across the Buckingham Arm of the Grand Union Canal onto a dredger. Easy! 

He leapt and missed. He lost his glasses. He was sodden and his pride took a very big dent, no doubt. New Year's Day I got home to hear the story. We later all walked to Stony and onto Wolverton and back along the canal in miserable rain and slippy mud. Along the whole way the water was murky and mud-coloured from all the rain. The fields were all flooded. I know I am not selling this as a fun walk but it was! As we passed the place where the incident happened, the team decided they could borrow a fishing net to fish the glasses out of the canal.

So this is what they did. I asked a couple of friends in the village if we could borrow a net. They both came good and after another not incident free session on the tow path, they fished out the prescription glasses - who would have thought it? Clearly Lady Luck looked favourably upon Mish despite his previous poor judgement. 

This has been a learning opportunity. I would say for starters take your glasses off before you attempt to jump across a body of water. Secondly, consider whether you ability is up to the task, maybe. Finally, don't jump. It wasn't neccessary to jump. The dredger didn't need to be manned at 2am on New Year's morning.

Perhaps I am far too sensible in my old age. Now I have asked around for fishing nets this will surely make its way into village folklore. I am convinced with very little help I could embellish the story somewhat. This definitely has legs!

My village one week later

One of the little ironies of Christmas is that in January it seems to be all about recycling. I have taken stuff - stuff not gifted this Christmas - to be recycled. I visited H&M with Ezra-Mae to drop off worn out clothes. This wasn't without incident. She needed to say hello to and cuddle every manikin in the shop. This was really frustrating as I had so many more things to do and it isn't easy strapping kids in the car after every stop. She learnt a new word - Manikin... an educational visit at least. Hey ho.