Happy New Year

We were undecided as to what to do yesterday. V & C were off to Derbyshire, Y was working at 7 the next morning and Mum & Dad were staying in for the first time in history.We toyed with the idea of going into town to see the fireworks (the original idea was that Mum & Dad would have come too) but decided that it was too much effort for just us. Then Y said that her and M would do whatever we were doing, so all change and off to the fireworks.

We met at Waterloo at 10:30 (can you imagine, we were actually on time for once) and it was absolutely heaving! We originally thought we would head to Waterloo Bridge, but by the time we got there it was closed off and we were herded round the side of the Shell building to find an amazingly nice spot pretty much under the London Eye.

By 11 o'clock TB had his hands placed firmly over his ears because it was 'too noisy', although it was more to do with the crowds of drunken revellers screaming rather than the still absent fireworks. Once we'd coaxed his hands away from his ears he happily played around for a while longer, until the noise got louder and he decided that it would be best to hide under my coat.

I dragged him out in time to see the fireworks, but he spent the show with his face pressed up against mine, hands over his ears, whimpering, but at the same time his eyes were absolutely glued to the show. Towards the end he started trying to hide again so I put him down and he crawled back underneath my coat, hands still over his ears. When the fireworks had finished, he was virtually asleep, standing up, with his hands still over his ears.


Our next problem was how to get home. At any given time I could tell you numerous ways to get home from where we were, whether by tube, train or bus (or a combination of). No amount of forward planning could've got us home with ease last night. First problem was the crowds. It wouldn't matter which way you wanted to go (in our case, out to the side to wait for the worst to pass), there was no way those crowds were going to let you. Try to stop and you'd be pushed over by those desperate to get out. What for, not a lot really, but I'll get to that later. So we got swept along with the rest of London in the direction of Waterloo. Luckily we wanted to be there, because there was little chance of heading anywhere else.

With TB rapidly falling asleep whilst sitting on my shoulders, we trekked round to the back end of Waterloo, only to find the masses had stopped moving whilst they closed the station off. After about half an hour of not moving and with TB now fast asleep, sitting on my shoulders and slumped over, snoring in my ear, we decided to break from the packed crowd and attempt to walk some of the way. We walked to Vauxhall as TB woke up, although he refused to walk on the basis that his legs had gone all 'roughy' (read: had pins and needles). Surprisingly enough, we easily got on a train by 2am and even had a seat between us. We managed to keep TB awake on the journey home (although he did his best to try and sleep) and he got home and decided he wanted 'TV on'. Cue much bribery on our part with promises of exciting next day activities and he happily went to sleep. Just like me.

And he only woke up at 11 this morning!