So 2011 begins..

We spent the eve of New Year's Eve with my brother and sil in London, where we were treated to a night of karaoke with them and their neighbours. I am immensely proud of my brother, who has recently lost 6 stone and is still going on losing. He already looks like a completely different man. Yet he still manages to cook amazing meals for the rest of us. Our NYE breakfast was green eggs and ham and guess what; I do like green eggs and ham!

After spending one night there, we heading down to our friends Dave and Davina's for the New Year. After a splendid NYE dinner, we headed into London town.

Whilst I loved being with our friends, heading into London on New Year's Eve is something I will never ever repeat again. The places we really wanted to be were barricaded off and we settled for a spot further down the Thames.

That was okay, we could see Big Ben, although to our disappointment, we couldn't hear the chimes but we did have a good view of the fireworks. Plus it was really nice to have Tom with us this time.

It was mostly coming home that was the nightmare, we ended up in a Hillsborough-esque crush just to get to Waterloo Station. The 2.35am train we were heading for, and got a good seat on, was cancelled due to silly people setting off the passenger alarms and we were redirected to another train on which we had no seat and no air. That train too was under threat of cancellation for the same reasons. We eventually got back to Dave and Davina's at around 5am.  I do think next new year I will just go to bed and welcome it in whilst sleeping. Good job we had a lovely Saturday and Sunday with our friends, and really helpful ministry at their church to make up for it. Loving the tired eyes in this photo after two sleepovers.