Happy New Year

I was the only person who cried at the fireworks. I suppose it was because I was enjoying myself and let my guard down. It was also because I really love the city I was born in, that I live in and gave birth to my children in. Soppy.

Our mayor and councillors put on a wonderful New Years Eve party in a park opposite the St Marys Cathedral which is beautifully lit up at night. There were some huge carnival rides, a giant bouncy castle, a huge slippery slide and rock-climbing wall. Can you imagine this floodlit at night, the backdrop to the carnival?



They played the movie "Alvin and the Chipmunks" at 7:15 pm on a big screen and had the kids' fireworks at 9:15 after our mayor spoke about Ipswich and why it's such a great place. I don't want to be corny but I agreed with everything he said and then cried when the fireworks started.

I was remembering my Happy New Year post from last year. Remember? I did this in gingerbread:



I also got stung by a wasp. Goodness I was young and naive back then! Such fresh-faced hope simply oozing out of that gingerbread. I had no idea:

- my itching would get so bad I would ruin my arms and legs from the scratching
- I would discover it was due to bed bugs, and spend many months getting rid of them
- the dog would cost much money and plunge me deep into stress with her habit of biting other dogs
- my blood-pressure problems would come back with a vengeance and I would have many tests to determine it was simply essential hypertension and not something sinister, and go on long-term medication to manage it
- Sonny Ma-Jiminy would encounter some challenging times on the road to complete toilet-training
- our sewer would burst
- Sonny Ma-Jiminy's kindy experience would nearly send me round the twist
- I would superglue my fingers to a plastic dinosaur
- we would get burgled
- we would bite the bullet and remodel our kitchen...
- ...only to be moved away to a different city.

It's been a bit of a ride, 2008. I'm not in a place where I can do some cheesy saying in gingerbread this year.

In fact, I had an idea to write in gingerbread what I really think to usher in 2009, but it included language so frightful it would have caused a scandal among my friends who read. Mr de Elba may have lost his job due to his association with me (heh, no move! yah!)

But despite intense pressure from the two most unshockable friends I have in the WORLD, Mrs Tantrum and Crazy Sister, I have restrained myself from using gingerbread to ruin my reputation.

But I'm happy to talk about YOUR 2009.

May the Lord bless you and all who are special to you. Delight yourself in Him, and the Bible says He will give you the desires of your heart. And if you're not a praying sort of person, I hope the year is just as good, and that you don't stop reading Killing A Fly because I just said that bit from the Bible.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ... Happy New Year!