It’s 3:00pm New Year’s Day and I’m sitting in the basement of Susie and Neil’s house in Hove. Jan and Neil have returned to bed after eating a bacon sandwich, Susie is watching Gone with The Wind, and I just had a shower and a bowl of cereal after being the first to wake up at about 1:30. The sun was dazzling through our window when I woke up, but only a week after the winter solstice, it is already starting to set. Last night was fun.

Jan and I arived here in Brighton on Thursday. Five days with the in-laws was perfect; we had just enough time to recharge our batteries and fill our bellies before we went totally mad. Spending time with Sarah and Garry was a definite high point for me while in Cambridgeshire. After a lovely evening of red wine and gossip at Garry’s house, we opened his front door to discover a winter wonderland had secretly replaced the grey landscape that had been present just a few hours earlier. The snow stopped falling just in time to allow our southbound train to depart for Brighton where a new set of friends would be waiting for us. In fact, that’s the best part of these trips to the UK hands down: hanging out with Jan’s mates.

Last night we went to the Prestonville Arms and met up with about 18 of Jan’s friends to ring in the new year. Even though they all live in the Brighton-Hove area, they don’t get together all that often. Two or three of them will bump in to each other or hang out about once every month or so, but they all have their own lives and responsibilities and it seems to be getting more and more difficult to meet up. But every time Jan and I come to town, they all come out of the woodwork.

Charlotte, Sarah, Claire, and Beth

Over the course of the evening I was able to sit down and chat with almost everyone. It was a great chance to catch up since we hadn’t seen many of these people since our wedding in July! Clea got married to Guy this year; Guy is working the stand-up comedy circuit; Sarah is engaged; Suzie and Neil bought a new house in Hove and are contributing to the British educational system and thus aiding the country’s future; Lou and Kristian moved back to England from Belgium, are off to work in Australia in a couple months, and then hope to move back to Belgium when they return (to start a family?!); Claire and Dameon have had a rollercoaster year with their outdoor theater company; Jo will be starring in a BBC comedy called Ideal with Johnny Vegas come March; Emma is still lovely and is still dropping and spilling things on an all too regular basis – she was the second person to spill their drink on me last night; Simon and Amilie’s little girl Lilly is ginormous now; Adrian apologized for missing our show in Edinburgh and then gave me a quick lesson on ‘global dimming’; Brian is broke (as usual) and gave our Puta Madre CD to a friend for Christmas; and the rest of the gang is happy and healthy and looking marvelous.

I’d better get up to the kitchen now to cook my spaghetti bolognese for Jan, Neil, and Suzie before we head out to Claire and Dameon’s house this evening for the New Year’s Day gathering. We fly home to Barcelona on Monday. But don’t expect to catch us just yet. We’re off on our next adventure on Wednesday…