Celebrating New Year Twice!

A belated Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year to all.  I hope that everyone had a great New Year celebration and didn’t overindulge in the amber nectar, or drank to extreme from the offerings available from Messrs Walker, Daniels and Beam!

Here in Australia the family has been on a two week holiday to see the outlaws (ahem, my in-laws – as my wife hovers over me to see what I am typing!).   Anyway, the outlaws live in Northern NSW and also across the gun-toting border in Queensland.  So getting to see them involved a road trip of 11 hours, with food and restroom breaks, from the Big Smoke that is known as Sydney. 

Things in the rural areas of NSW seem to move much slower than in the cities.  At times it feels like time has stood still as nothing really seems to change from one day to the next.  Part of this is due to the weather which is normally stinking hot this time of year, and also due to the “she’ll be right mate” attitude of the friendly locals.  The locals would rather “down a tinny” before rescuing their belongings from a flood!

Anyway, for New Year’s Eve the missus and I, together with some of her relatives, hit the Gold Coast to see in 2012. One strange thing about Queensland is that the time zone in summer is always 1 hour behind NSW and Victoria.  The reasons for this are unclear however, in the past there have been suggestions that daylight savings “confuses the cows” and “fades the curtains”.

The night itself was great fun with lots of food and drinks. At 11pm the wife and I celebrated New Year for the first time (as it was Midnight in Sydney) and then repeated it an hour later in Queensland.  Just before Midnight (the Queensland one) we all went outside to see the fireworks from Broadbeach Park.  Naturally, they weren’t quite in the class of Sydney, or even London but were still pretty good.

One thing that I am sure was the same virtually all around the world on New Year’s Eve was the arduous task of getting home.  Lots of people, coupled with hardly any buses, trains or taxis made it an interesting night indeed.  However, we did get home prior to the sun rising!

New Year is a time for resolutions and if you are like me you will have made one, or even a few.  Mine is to increase my physical activity now that my leg is getting much stronger after two Achilles operations.  Since coming back to Sydney the wife and I have been walking for at least 1 hour every night.  Hopefully I will keep up the good work.  Now where did I put that chocolate bar….