Holiday #2: New Year's Eve

After our terrific morning walk and lunch in a pub, everyone but Mr A, Lola II and me went and did another afternoon walk. We headed off to buy a few last minute provisions for the evening's cooking, and have a wander about the town. It turned out to be far too cold to be wandering about, so instead we installed ourselves in a tea shop with the newspaper and waited for the others.

After dinner, we settled in the sitting room. With Lola II in the party, games in the evenings were compulsory, not an optional extra. The first few nights we found ourselves feeling unexpectedly elderly, heading for bed at around 10 p.m. With a bit of endurance training, we managed to extend the evenings nicely, so that by New Year's Eve we all managed to make it to midnight (except those under the age of 10). So there was enough scope for Lola II's imagination to run riot.

Our main game this year was Balderdash, which is similar to the TV quiz game 'Call My Bluff'. For our special NYE game, however, we were treated to a version of 'Mr & Mrs' compered by our very own Derek Lola Batey II.

[For the purposes of research, I had a quick look for any pertinent websites, and I found this. Not only is there already a Mr & Mrs game in a box, but there's also a DVD, you can rent Derek Batey's own house in Florida for a holiday, he is a "talented, witty and amusing after dinner speaker" and you can even hire the man himself to "write and present special ‘Mr. & Mrs.’ or ‘Partners’ competitions at Corporate events, Company functions or Conferences." Well I never.]

I really should have known that Mr A hates golf more than he hates aerobics, but I definitely did know that 'Whole Lotta Rosie' was the tune to get him out onto the dance floor, and that if the doorbell rang at 7 a.m. on a Saturday, he'd be the one to get out of bed and answer the door. Nevertheless, we trailed the field throughout and came last. The deserving winners (who got 9 out of 10) aren't even married. Pah.

Rainer treated us all to the traditional German punch that is Feuerzangenbowle as midnight came around, the extra leap second ticked over, and it was 2009.