New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve was a very big day. The lovely neighbours across the road had kindly offered their services for interview practice, so on Saturday morning I dressed up in all my proper interview clothes (including Lady Shoes) and knocked on their door at the appointed time. The next two hours were spent in honing my interview skills to such a point that I could have cut myself on them. I don't think I have ever spent two hours more usefully, and if I don't get the job this time it will only be that I fail to apply the lessons I have learned from them.

Then the new washing machine was delivered, and while we scrabbled round trying to turn off the mains water and disconnecting the old machine, the delivery men stood about wondering why we didn't anticipate that it would save time if we'd done this before they came. Buoyed up by the joy and wonder of having a new (and effectively free) kitchen appliance, we extracted the dead freezer from its built-in state to the middle of the kitchen, so we could measure it. It remains there, getting in the way, until we can be bothered to take the door off and put it in the garden out of the way.

It became clear that we would have to stop messing about with white goods if we were to get away and to the New Year's Eve venue as planned, so then there was a bit of packing and an attempt at fancy dress. The theme was 'Apocalypse', and I'd hoped to be able to get to town and charity shops, but ran out of time. So my best effort had to be limited to choosing all my black clothes (also advisable since we hadn't had a working washing machine for about two weeks) and my black leather bike jacket. Mr A couldn't do much better either, so it would have to do.

We checked into the hotel then went out for something to eat, followed by a drink at a random pub we found. It would actually have been very entertaining to have stayed there - they had a little dance floor and a DJ, and just before we left they had started some sort of game involving horse-related music (we didn't quite understand it fully) and everyone was very friendly and wished us a Happy New Year when we went.

We were on the guest list at the door of the gig, and were greeted warmly: "Oh! you're The Boy's dad, aren't you! I've been looking forward to meeting you!" The venue was an old warehouse, and in the yard outside they'd set up various tents, portaloos and stalls with some shelter, because it was raining quite a lot at this point. There weren't many people there when we arrived, but it filled up nicely. Luckily for us, The Boy's DJ slot had been moved forward to only 1.15 a.m. - it had previously been scheduled at 2.45, and we weren't sure we'd be able to stay awake that long.

We were the oldest people there, probably by about 20 years on average, and although there was very little light, we really stood out. As the night progressed, it became clear how obvious we were, and it was a little like being a celebrity - we were greeted by people as if they knew us, they took our photo or asked to have their photo taken with us. We did a little bit of dancing (most of the music wasn't really suitable for dancing), and that really seemed to impress the crowd - one lad actually asked Mr A how old we were, and others just said things like 'well done'. It was weird. But fun. We sat down for a lot of the time, just watching what the Young People were getting up to and all the costumes - the best by far was a proper Dalek outfit, including a hood, which must have been extraordinarily hot.

We did manage to stay awake for the start of The Boy's set, then wandered back to the hotel, where I fell asleep and was woken only occasionally by the other hotel occupants running up and down the corridor, shouting and banging on doors. Unfortunately Mr A remained awake throughout, so I drove us home as soon as possible.

2011 has been an interesting year. Half the time I was a student, doing very well, getting a great degree, and then spending the other half of the year mostly unemployed. I have done a few small dietetic-related jobs - the Communication Skills lecture in September, contributing a chapter to a book about dietetics as a career, and trying to set up Store Tours for people with coeliac disease, and then the turkey farm job. If my interview goes well today then 2012 may be the start of a 'real' dietetic job, and if not, there will be other interviews. Mr A and I are pretty happy together, we make each other laugh quite a lot, and that certainly makes all the other stuff easier to manage.