New Years Eve. To be honest I can’t wait to bid farewell and fuck off to 2023. I have no idea what 2024 will bring but I just need to draw a line under this year and call it done.

We spend the morning cleaning and tidying the house. It’s been 8 months since we moved in – I can’t quite believe it. I really can’t imagine living anywhere else.

In the early evening, V, who was at the cousins dinner on Friday, sends an apologetic text – she has just tested positive for Covid. I hope she doesn’t get too sick but am not too concerned about myself. If I got Covid on the last day of 2023 I really wouldn’t be surprised. I think I’d laugh at 2023 trying desperately to get one last jab in. There’s nothing I can do about it now anyway.

Susannah and I have decided to go back to the roots of where we met and do a Japanese style dinner for New Year’s Eve. Susannah makes Tuna Tataki, Kinpira Gobo (burdock and carrot), and rice, and I make Agedashi Dofu, and Nasu Dengaku. It’s absolute chaos in the kitchen and I wonder why we bothered cleaning up today, but the resulting feast is amazing. We have way too much food so will enjoy it all again another day.

We drink some sake that we’ve been saving, chat, and listen to some music. We have a toned down version of a dance party in that we dance seated in our chairs, both too tired to get up and dance properly. Still, it’s fun and we make it to midnight.

Just after midnight we walk around each room in our house ringing a bell (a handheld brass elephant bell I inherited from my Uncle O), making sure to get in all the corners and shout Oni wa Soto, Fuku wa Uchi! which means Demons out, fortune in! in Japanese. This is traditionally part of a Setsubon or bean-throwing event held in February, but we have adopted and adapted it. It really does seem like an appropriate thing to yell this New Years.

Thoughts on 2023 – this year sucked. It’s been very, very, very hard and I’ve shed a lot of tears, but I am still here!

I have learned a great deal in a very short time. I try to not stress about the small stuff and just concentrate on what really matters. I try to live more in the moment and to be more mindful. Sometimes I succeed with this outlook and sometimes I don’t. But that’s ok too. I am a work in progress.

I am extremely lucky to have a ton of support and some great people on my side and I give thanks for that everyday.

None of us knows what the future brings. The saying you could get hit by a bus springs to mind. I read on the news that actually happened to one poor lady at the Albany bus station just before Christmas. I think that as hard as it is, maybe I am fortunate to be given a bit of notice of what might be. Yet, anything is possible so I’m going to say sayonara 2023, and leap into 2024 with my eyes wide open and a smile on my face.

Happy New Year everyone!