Happy New Year...

Nothing says New Year like steak pie

2012 was a massive year. The Jubilee, Olympics and Paralympics might have been some of the big hitters in the UK but T and I also had our own annus mirabilis. It started wonderfully with our wedding in Feburary, T turning 40 and discovering she actually was an identical twin (surprise, surprise I hear you cry). Then we found out T was pregnant, and so 2012 ended with the birth of our beautiful daughter Emily and me turning 40 on 12/12/12. We worked out it would be pretty much impossible to beat this year for its significance.

Seeing double and it was only 8pm

So to celebrate the ending of a very eventful 2012 we invited the Gurney's over to the west coast, to help us bring in the New Year and return their Christmas hospitality. Unfortunately fate had other plans as apparently their car exhaust went wobbly. Personally I reckon not being able to find a garage open late on Hogmanay was a lame excuse as John could have just tied it up with Layla's tights if he really wanted, but instead T suggested that if the Gurney's can't come to New Year then we take New Year to them. So off we trotted back east, a car full of Hogmanay dinner, returning to North Berwick like the proverbial bad penny. I even took my own whisky having helped John 'taste test' his over Christmas. It seemed to do the trick as their door was open and their hearth most welcoming once more.

John raising the New Year toast

So our New Year came in delightful style with smoked mackerel pate and salmon, steak pie and fine cheese, some very excited children and a drop of malt to wash it down. Poor Emily didn't quite know what to make of her first New Year but even she managed a wee tipple at the bells.

Drinking up at the bells

The next day saw John undertaking the first part of the North Berwick triathlon by completing the Loony Dook. Plain stupid if you ask me but he seems to get a perverse pleasure out of it.

Dip anyone?

John Gurney - Man of Iron

So there it is, the close of 2012's great adventure and the dawn of 2013's uncharted sea. What will it bring I wonder? Well, whatever comes your way, Tanya, Emily and myself want to wish you a healthy, happy and magical new year and 'lang may yer lum reek'!