I started this year drunk. Much like last year.

Hello 2012.  I wish I could say I welcomed in the New Year in style, but the truth is I welcomed in the New Year at a pub in Brixton like a lush and then locked myself in a toilet by accident.  Don't recall tweeting from there, which led to a massive cringe moment yesterday when I discovered the evidence.  Bizarrely, the offending tweet had correct spelling.  I truly hope people realised I was boozed when sending that crap into the ether. 

But the hangover was not nearly so bad as I expected/deserved, so 2012 may turn out to be OK after all.  But that reminds me, do NOT watch the Hangover Part II, btw - effing awful movie even when hungover and looking for mindless couch entertainment.  Stick to Harry Potter. 

I have been trying to remember the last time I saw in a New Year without being under the influence of the demon drink.  Sadly (and I mean sadly, I'm not saying it in a braggy sort of "look at how cool I am with the drinking and whatnot" way, but actually as a reflection on my poor decision-making abilities and patchy memory), I had significant trouble piecing together what I've done for New Year's Eve over the last decade or so.  I would say I had the assistance of P with that task but his memory is even more patchy than mine ("Were we at a beach somewhere in '04/'05, possibly with friends? Or was that '03/'04? or '05/'06?" - as if New Zealanders would have done anything else, it's practically compulsory when in NZ).  The last sober NYE may have been the millenium (and I'm probably disclosing my age here) when Mum and Dad drove a friend and me into the Domain in Auckland to watch the fireworks, following which we took them right up on their offer of a lift home again…only to receive a phone call from the girls who we were supposed to meet, who had managed to score a free hotel room and gifted tickets to the Finn Brothers concert on the waterfront.  At that time in my life, free tix and a room were the most impossibly glamourous things that could happen to an underage girl (I didn't consider the possibility of strings attached, clearly).  I seem to recall tears of vexation and disappointment when Dad wouldn't turn the car around.  So, following that wee disappointment in 2000, there have been eleven subsequent NYE celebrations involving copious quantities of the supermarket's finest (admit it, you know you pick your wine at the super based on three things: is there a little medallion sticker on it?  Has five bucks been knocked off the usual price?  And more importantly, is the label pretty?).

I tried hard to turn my behaviour this NYE into something resembling "grown up" behaviour.  After getting coffee, P and I went to the Tate Modern for some culture, thankyouverymuch.  But we started our art tour with a drink overlooking the Thames while discussing important life questions, then after a desultory wander through the surrealists (surreal, for real), we drank more in a Bermondsey tapas bar, before repairing home to 'get ready' (i.e. have a few more in order to solve the clothing crisis) then head out.  Safe to say we were well on our way before arriving in Brixton where the party was in full swing.  The elements were there, but tipsy art-viewing involving squinting at a Dali does not qualify as adult behaviour.

THE VIEW FROM THE TATE; WINTER IN LONDON.  IF YOU'RE FEELING PARTICULARLY SORRY FOR ME FEEL FREE TO SEND VITAMIN D TABLETS AND A SUN LAMP.  OR A DREDGE AND A FEW WATER PURIFICATION TABLETS FOR THE THAMES

But never fear, I am a product of post-colonial teen-drinking NZ, transported to the Mother Country where drinking vats of bevvies is smiled upon and glorification of bad boozy behaviour abounds!  I will no doubt shelve my concerns about the effects of over-consumption in favour of getting on it the next time the girls call and I will in all likelihood continue to write trite crap about my exploits.

Lucky you, aye?