Sunday 01/01/06

The boats in the harbour sound their horns after the stroke of midnight, as does the powerstation. For about 10 minutes, there is a flurry of fireworks going off down the backstreets, then it all goes quiet. We drink a few glasses of Cava and wish each other happy new year. At 12.30 a.m., we have a first-footer, as they're called in Scotland. This gentleman was involved in an unfortunate incident, where he wandered the streets of Newton in his birthday costume, in full view of a packed town bus. He is very drunk, and has difficulty getting the words out. Harmless nonetheless. Mrs B bundles him out of the door at 1 a.m., as she wants to go and visit her brother-in-law up the road. Our visitor can be seen staggering up Newton Street, trying to open someone's front gate. When he can't do that, he tries to climb over the wall, which he cannot do either. We avoid him by going down Inaclete Road, but mrs B's relative is in bed now. So we go to her other son, up one street for a convivial ceilidh. Once her son turns up that is, because everybody (bar his eldest son) are out and about. Return to mrs B's place at 2 a.m., go to bed at 4 o'clock.

Finally rise at 11 a.m., feeling a little fragile. Only manage fruit juice and cereal, not up to much more. Brilliantly sunny morning though, with some high level cloud creeping in. The Coastguard helicopter had its first outing of 2006, when it was called out to Ullapool this morning. Someone had fallen 40 feet / 12 m off a cliff, and could not be reached from land. We have a magnificent New Year's Supper, consisting of roast leg of lamb, vegetables and a raspberry pavlova. The last of the Christmas crackers are pulled, and they contain more corny jokes (why can't ducks tell jokes in flight? they'll quack up). At 10 pm, we go to another ceilidh at mrs B's brother-in-law. He tells us some good yarns, well sprinkled with whisky incidentally. By 1.30, we stagger home to our beds.