New Year, new slate, new hopes.

 New Year, new slate, new hopes. 

Happy and Healthy New Year everybody. Yes here we are at the beginning of another chapter of our lives, a new year, new hopes and new wishes. We can ask no more. Under normal circumstances the start of January would have been the time and place to get cracking on signing up for full membership of your local gym, losing weight by substantial stones, keeping fit and generally building up a portfolio for personal targets, getting promotion at work and then ensuring that everything runs smoothly. 

But then our well intentioned New Year's resolutions are blown out of the water because somebody forgot to check the Lottery numbers and you might have won £250 million. Then you discover the cat has got completely lost and you've no idea where it might have gone. And then not for the first time the dish washer stops working for no apparent reason and the cooker looks as though it might be showing signs of rebellion. You've turned on the stove and nothing seems to be working so you call out an engineer and they're still in Barbados looking for a cafe where nobody wears a Covid 19 mask. It's enough to drive you around the bend. 

Still, here we are in the first month of 2022 and all the signs are mildly encouraging if not entirely so. Last year the whole globe began to see small, green shoots of recovery from the ravages of Covid 19. Mind you we had to wait a pretty long time for something concrete to happen. Patience was though a virtue and we were rewarded for our forbearance. We could breathe again, smile, laugh, cackle, giggle, yawn and sneeze without feeling guilty in case some of the remnants of the virus were still in the air. 

On July 19 we struggled out of bed, opened up the blinds and curtains only to find a couple of robins had camped out overnight on our window ledge and were trying to tell us something. It's gone they might have been privately muttering under their breaths. The coronavirus had all but gone. Surely not. After all this time it's finally resolved to disappear over the horizon and never come back again. For a while it looked like the perfect state of Nirvana. Those pounding, throbbing nightclubs could blast out cacophonous music for as long as they liked and none of us would ever complain again. 

Throughout London, the West End, East End, the shires, counties, outskirts, regions, cities, towns, villages and those remote corners of Britain where everybody would have been welcome again it was business as usual. The seaside hotels, once shuttered up like prisons for over a year and half, were now humming with tourists, businessmen and women and a jubilant population. It was a sight we could hardly believe we'd ever see again although we knew we would again at some point. 

So here we are in 2022 and we'd all resigned ourselves to the worst case scenario because some nasty intruder had broken into our living room and tried to spoil the party. We were all gearing ourselves up for a good, steadily improving, healthy New Year when Omicron poked its face through the front door with an evil glare on its face. As events seem to be panning out at the moment though nobody need to panic. Omicron is just some yobbish roughneck who just likes to make a nuisance of themselves.

This year my wife and yours truly decided to do something completely different. Well, not exactly different but the decision was to just get out of London and head for Scotland. The Scots love Hogmany and everything associated with dancing, music and bagpipes. Our destination was Dumfries, a lovely little Scottish gem tucked away amid the thistle, heather and rugged landscape of Scotland. If this had been a chocolate box of a Scottish town then this would have been the orange cream. 

We'd booked into the beautiful Cairndale Hotel in Dumfries, a hotel that warmly accommodates golfers during the summer and contented visitors during the winter. It was a three day break with bed and breakfast thrown in for good measure. The Christmas tree, still the dominant theme of the moment, stood respectably like some upright sentry outside Buckingham Palace. The thickly carpeted staircases were steeped in history and Victorian gentility. We lugged our one suitcase up to the first floor and got ready to rock and roll. 

Our itinerary consisted of one very short trip to a small house once lived in by the legendary Rabbie Jones, gentleman of letters, poetry and a very sentimental heart. Inside the glass cases there were the legacies of long ago, a private, snug study where Burns wrote his slushy prose and verse. Our guide stood quietly away from us regrettably wary of visitors since the virus was still at bay. In fact wherever we went in Dumfries we were simply surrounded by people wearing what now looked very much like surgical masks although there were some faces we could barely see if only because the mask seemed to cover both their mouth, eyes and foreheads. 

And so we came to New Year's Eve and the imminent Hogmany celebrations. After spending some relaxing quality time in the indoor pool and then sampling the excellent food and cuisine, we  began to admire the festive scenery. At the front of the stage for the evening were balloons depicting the year 2022 and then the entertainers for this special evening. A gentleman with a stirringly deep baritone voice belted out a whole string of Scottish folk songs and then there was the highlight. 

Now this is something personal. It had been many decades ago since you'd heard a Scotsman wearing the traditional tartan kilt and embracing the world famous bagpipes. During the early 1970s you remembered that almost heroic Scotsman Andy Stewart in all of the above regalia, blowing the pipes with all the conviction you'd expect from the land of haggis and whisky. Here was a performance to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. 

Walking past our table, he held together the bagpipes firmly, cradling the instrument as if it were his first born. He then headed for the stage before breaking into a tribute to everything. Then with feathers on his head gear neatly arranged the accordion broke out with a vengeance. Suddenly you were that kid sitting far too near the TV, transfixed by the sound of Scotland. It was an evening to treasure, a moving and deeply nostalgic evening that took you right back to 1970.

Now though Scotland had taken down its guard and began to enjoy itself. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister had given a cautionary warning about the need for modest celebrations at home. But she had yet to take on a small gathering of happy-go-lucky people in a Dumfries hotel. They were adamant. Nobody would ever jeopardise their New Year's Eve jolly.

Suddenly the tables around us were a hive of activity. New Year's Eve would be a hotbed for small clusters of dancing. Oh, what defiance, what a show of militancy. You'll never break the indomitable spirit of the Scots. So they twirled their partners, shook their hips quite daringly at times and then abandoned themselves to mass groups of dancers who came perilously close to the main stage. None of us knew whether anybody had actually broken the Covid 19 laws but we weren't about to find out whether they had or not. New Year's Eve had given away to New Year's Day. Hooray! Hooray!

By the time New Year's Day had got its act together most of us were in a complete state of ecstasy. The evening entertainment had excelled itself. Now on New Year's Day we were treated to the stupendously talented repertoire of the one and only Neil Diamond. Now sadly the real Neil Diamond couldn't make it on the night although that would have been a show and a half had it been the man himself. But we did get somebody who did bear a vague resemblance to the maestro himself and the songs were melodious blasts from the past. 

The now immediately hummable and finest of them all 'Sweet Caroline' gave English hotel guests a painful reminder of Euro 2020. 'Crackling Rosie' is now tucked away in a vintage corner of the Diamond songbook and then our singer for the night regaled us with his interpretation of songs from the film The Jazz Singer. It was all very happy, clappy, joyful and triumphant. Now that 2020 and 2021 have now gone it was time to look forward to a year that some of us will hope will blossom with good, mental and physical health. The last two years may well fit into some very definitive category but let's hope 2022 is positive, buoyant, happy, healthy and without any sorrow. Have a brilliant New Year everybody.