New Year's Day

My blog output is definitely slowing with the number of spinning plates I have to keep from falling over.  Some are perpetual like care for my daughter, some are ongoing but immediate and some have to be done ASAP.  For the Christmas and New Year breaks, I took my eye off the ball, not least because I had to attend my regular work, 9-5, for all of last week bar Thursday (New Year's Day), with the post-Christmas output the heaviest workload of the year in Telegraph Announcements (engagements abound and old people giving out having made a last Christmas/New Year).  There's nothing like temporising with 'real' work.
So, I'll keep this entry short.  For the first time since Kimberley was born, I went to a house party.  The plan was for Kimberley to attend, if asleep in a spare room, but when it was time to leave (8 pm), despite my entreaties, Altaa ruled that it was too cold and dark for Kimberley to be leaving the house.  Also, against my entreaties, Altaa insisted that I went.
So, in some ways with reluctance, I went to Saff Lahndahn, specifically the area around Peckham Rye (although Nunhead train station is closer geographically to the flat).  It was a route well-worn for me as Denmark Hill, where one of my grandfathers resides, is just a stone's throw away (if you are Hercules).  Journey up to Bromley South and switch trains for a journey through the suburbs that takes just as long as the journey to Bromley South in the first place.
The party was movie-themed and so fancy dress was, if not mandatory, desirable.  With a tweed jacket and waistcoat, brown trousers and loosened tie, I was Colonel Mustard from Clue.  Alternatively, I could have been Flynn Carsen from The Librarian (TV movie series for the SyFy channel).  Further still, one of the guests guessed that I was Indiana Jones from the academia scenes from the movies.
The host, Simon Savory, was dressed up as Donkey from Shrek though he later changed his identity to Warhorse. There was Sandy from Grease (whose underlying message is that you have be a slutty bitch to get the man you want), Batman (using a dressing gown as a cape, it has to be from The Dark Knight Rises, where Bruce Wayne has spent the best part of a decade in his bedroom), a geisha girl from Memoirs of a Geisha, the murderer from Scream (1, 2 or 3), Daisy Buchanan (The Great Gatsby) Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's but not Audrey Hepburn in her evening dress but a leftfield turn of Holly waking up in white shirt with tassle earrings and velvet eye cover, plus turns from Cats, Pulp Fiction, Ace Ventura and others besides.
Simon's notorious punch was in operation and limoncello and copious champagne was consumed.  I call Altaa up as I had promised at ten seconds to midnight to see in the New Year with her, long distance.  We danced away to old favourite songs until three in the morning and then crashed until quarter to noon.  As I helped clear away the recycling, my fragile state was not helped by the smell of dog food/poo (one or the other) in the downstairs lobby, though the brutal cold and wind of outside freshened me up (you know the wind is strong when the grass at ground level is seen to ripple and writhe).  I eventually sloped off at three in the afternoon, thanking Simon again.  That was how I saw in 2015, just like the good, old days.