Happy New Year, everyone

Here I am, sitting at my computer, typing this. It's 11.20 in the evening,
just before the start of the New Year.

Everyone else in the house has gone to bed early. We had a mini-celebration
earlier this evening, drinking some excellent Cava (just as good as champagne
I think, for a fraction of the price ... I think champers is an over-rated
drink, anyway) ... and eating some Thornton's chocs. The latter were a
mixture of milk and dark chocolate ... I prefer the less sweet, darker
chocolate, though I can't eat a lot of it. We watched the end of the
second episode of "Cranford" with our daughter L ... I felt close to tears
in parts of this, when various storylines were concluded happily. "Tears of
joy" in fact. This phrase seems to be really illogical .... why do people
cry when something really good happens (following periods of misery or
hardship)?

Our neice Z and her 4 year old son came round to see us yesterday evening,
for a chat. Z told us a funny story about her son, who was getting very
excited at the prospect of Santa coming on Christmas Eve. It's the one
evening in the entire year, when he's keen to get to bed early ... he
announced to his mum and dad: "I want to go to bed now. I feeling sweepy."