Old Year's Night

The garden is haunted by robins.  I have been putting the crusts out at breakfast time and there are dunnocks, sparrows, blue tits, blackbirds and large crows - Sheryl and Russell - and at least two robins that are very confident and wait for me on the iron garden chairs.  These are in front of the outside Christmas tree so they look very festive.  The birds are after the food as it has been bitingly cold for the last few days.  The temperature hasn't risen above minus 3 C all day and has now dropped to about minus 5.  A grey, foggy day for the last of the old year; a day of silhouettes and hazy distances.  

New Year's Eve/Old Year's Night is one of my feasts of Christmas.  We used to celebrate on 23rd December as we moved into our first house on that date; then something (perhaps fish) on Christmas Eve, the large meal and Table on Christmas Day (one long feast interrupted by chocolate).  And Old Year's Night as we don't go out - too busy, too hectic - and then the last Christmas feast on Twelfth Night, in a bare house with the decorations cleared away for another year.  Candlelight and austerity; a benchmark for January.  

So tonight we drink strong beer and sit by the fire, reading and remembering and looking Janus-like forwards and backwards, inside and out.  A roasted vegetable lasagne for the meal; then cheese/biscuits and probably in bed at half-past ten!  Won't be the first time...  But as my reader is probably more fun-loving than I am, then a Happy New Year to you.  It promises to be cold.