So when the UK sleeps, we know you other MNers are out there part II

[tadjennyp]

I was looking for thumbwitch's recipe for that cake and found the old thread has disappeared so Linzer and I thought we'd resurrect it!

Ah, no, I chickened out!

Fireworks were fantastic. Always bring a little tear to my eye, if I'm honest.

Couple of drunk idiots swimming in the harbour so wondering if we will wake up to news of a shark attack.....

Happy New Year, everyone! So far I can highly recommend 2011.

it's so strange we haven't even gone out yet, but you're already a year ahead of us.

anyway, happy new year, people, whenever it gets to you.

Weird isn't it! I wanted to send text messages to everyone, but it would still only have been 1pm for most of them! so I didn't. Hurrah for FB - could just put my message on there. :)

Hi Happy New Year everyone. Very quiet for us - in bed by 10pm, although the fireworks woke me up at midnight. Maybe the day will come again one day when I stay awake on NYE (last time I did so was dd1's first NYE - since then I've realised I need my sleep too much!).

Just counting down the days until work/school/playgroup starts again and I can start getting into a routine. We've been home nearly two weeks now and have bought two cars. There have been so many holiday days though it's been hard to get much done. also haven't seen many people apart from my family and a couple of friends as I guess everyone is busy at this time of the year. W do have some friends coming tomorrow who I haven't seen for ages, so that will be nice.

Hope you are all enjoying the last few days of holiday until it's back to reality.

Happy New Year to everyone! Today is the last day of the holidays for us as dh is back at work tomorrow. At least he has had 10 whole days off (Christmas Eve was a holiday) for the first time in well over a year. He's currently painting our ensuite bathroom and hopefully we can get the bath changed in the kids' bathroom before baby arrives!

Has anyone made any New Year's Resolutions? I need to be more 'in the moment' with my dcs I think. They will be small for such a short amount of time. I also want to waste less time FBing MNing and will just stick to the threads with people I know on them, like you lovely lot!

A slightly belated Happy New Year to everyone! We're still in Wales and so I've been spending much less time than usual on MN - I've only been checking the threads I'm on and haven't looked at Active Convos once, and I've been surprised to find how little I've missed it. So I may be joining you in one of your resolutions, jenny (actually, I should join you in both as I constantly feel guilty about how little 'quality time' I spent with the DC).

Otherwise, my only New Year's resolution is to learn Italian. I've been talking about it for a few years - ever since we started going on holiday to Italy - and I know I've mentioned it on this thread, so now is the time to finally put my good intentions into practice. I bought a course just before Christmas so will make a start once we're back home!

Lovely language - you'll have so much fun. I may have to skip out on the next Spanish course as dh is prob away for the first lesson and then it's getting closer and closer to baby's arrival! Will decide tomorrow when dh gets back to work. Where in Wales are you Linzer? I used to live in Undy (Magor) and we got married in Tintern. Loved it down there.

happy new year.

i decided that we should all make a resolution - so we wrote them down, put them in a sealed envelope, and on the back of each one, wrote the family one - to go out & do things more (not just stay home & play wii etc).

i'm aiming to finish my current projects - one knitting, two sewing, that have been dragging on for about 5 years now! just need to do them more often. thing is, dh likes watching movies in the dark. i just can't do embroidery in the dark!

i spent quite a bit of my 'yoof' around monmouth - a lot of happy memories, none of which i will ever share with my mother or my daughter!

Can't believe that tomorrow will be our last day here - the last nine days have just flown by. We've only been in Wales (my parents live in Aberystwyth) for a week though, as DH and I also spent a couple of days in London. DH had booked afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason as my Christmas present, which was lovely but not exactly cheap, so we lingered for a few hours to get our money's worth and lived on reduced M&S sandwiches the rest of the time!

Yum, Fortnum and Mason sounds lovely! Hope you have an easy trip back. Time with the family does seem to fly, doesn't it?

i love proper afternoon tea - we went to the wolsley one time, on a whim & had champagne & tea. they were the best sandwiches that i have EVER tasted, even the cream cheese & celery, and i HATE celery.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

clever of dh to get you a present he could taste too!

That sounds like a lovely Christmas present Linzer. Hope the journey home goes well.

Thumb - those are some floods in Australia. However, a long way from you I think? Still, it must be pretty awful for everyone living up there.

By the way do you remember the hamper I won in the Bisto comp, mentioned somewhere down the thread? It wasn't full of gravy granules at all - it was fab: a box of Charbonnel et Walker champagne truffles, a gorgeous Floris grapefruit and rosemary (very posh) candle and a large, beautifully presented box of Penhaligons body lotions and shower gels. Oh and some gravy granules. All in a lovely, old fashioned wicker-type hamper. Fab. Very indulgent! I will now enter every MN competition I come across....

That sounds great stranded! Very nice indeed. Those floods are catastrophic, aren't they?

Oooh that sounds gorgeous!

I shall join in the Wales love - we spent a couple of years not far from Aber (near Cardigan) when I was teeny and my parents never sold the house so we went back every summer as kids. It was fab. Still is. I can't wait to take my DC there to offload onto my parents

NYE here was crazy. We were on the beach with what felt like half the island and there were fireworks everywhere!

Outside? On New Year's Eve? At midnight? I'm so old I can't remember what that is like! It sounds like a lovely evening though!

Hello! Now we're all in 2011 together at last

I had friends from England staying from Sunday until today so also spent less time on MN, and yes, didn't really miss it. For me it's something to do when I'm awake on my own at night, and part of my wake-up routine in the morning. Then I mostly ignore it through the day. But still spend too much time on it, so really ought to adopt Jenny's NYR as well!

Mine are to be more organised, do the paperwork that needs to be done, lose the weight that needs to be lost and generally take myself in hand.

Love the sound of that Bisto hamper! and glad you have transport sorted at least, stranded.

Wales - I too have happy memories of a few weekends spent there, with my friend and her Welsh boyfriend - going to the 5 nations rugby at Cardiff Arms Park, riding in the Tredegar Young Farmers' Boxing Day Hunt and getting utterly lost because we got separated from them (they didn't find a fox, it was mostly for the ride, glorious crisp sunny winter day); getting iced in to the house; good times.

The floods are mostly in Queensland, and mostly north of Brisbane - so that's a pretty long way from us (13+ hours drive) - however, there has been lesser flooding in more northerly parts of NSW as well, just not as bad as in Q'land. They get the tropical storms up there as well, which we tend not to get in NSW. Rubbish for the poor people who live there though - evacuated over Christmas and New Year, and many of them won't be insured (it seems to be less common here to make sure you have contents insurance - we don't, for example, because DH doesn't believe in it )

Clearly your dh is not used to the phenomenon of burst pipes thumb!

Must get off computer and go to my acupuncture session - bliss!

ok, so can anyone explain to me how come there are so many burst pipes in the UK, but NONE here. i mean, we have a well, water piped into the house, waste piped into the septic tank, none of our pipes freeze.

how come?

Lots of pipes in the UK are outside as indoor plumbing was introduced after the house was built?

i'm thinking of the areas of the UK where water supply pipes (to entire areas, not just a house) have burst - NI for example. Those run underground.

And there are still lots of people who don't have their lofts/attics adequately insulated, and that is where the water tank and therefore main pipes are located.

Now we're in Australia, our pipes are all outdoors, tank too - everything goes under the house and only enters where needed. So a burst pipe would water the land but not the house. And they never freeze here anyway.

But there's still fire risk! And theft!

Ah kickass - those are just ancient and poorly maintained. Many of them have been in place since Victorian times. The cold will still affect them but not as much; but if it's very cold AND heavy loads go over them it can cause them to crack. Or something. But mostly it's because they're so old and made of terracotta/earthenware.

Actually, not sure about the earthenware/terracotta bit but they are some kind of ceramic, not metal or plastic.

Aren't the sewers that Bazalgette built in London all brick? They are ancient now though!

There was a burst water main in Bend last year that flooded part of downtown. I think it was built around the same time as the town and so was old. The city can't afford to maintain the water system in this economy and the insurance refused to pay up!