This year was our best New Year's Eve ever. We had our friends Gordy and Willo to stay (it was a decade this year since Gordy and I spent Christmas and New Year in New York) and this is what we did:

After a leisurely morning playing Wizard101, getting showered and having lunch, we set off for town. We browsed around the shops for a bit before setting off to walk Ludo. It was a bit muddy but it didn't rain, the countryside was as lovely as ever and we found a handy shortcut. We went to our favourite pub on the other side of town and they didn't mind that we traipsed mud all across their floor. We had a pint and played some games and then walked back home, arriving back just as it was getting dark.

For dinner we had goats cheese and tomato tartlets, made by Willo, followed by lamb and pine nut tagine with festive cous cous and pomegranate and red onion relish, followed by cheesecake. We had pink champagne with the starters, Sancerre with the main course, and undrinkable dessert wine with the pudding. Then Izzy went to bed and we got started on the games.

Gordy made an awesome special playlist on my iPod while we were making dinner, and really didn't spend that much considering I gave him free rein of my credit card and the iTunes store :) The playlist has gone straight on my shuffle and will be accompanying me on many dog walks and train journeys to work over the next few weeks.

We started off playing Articulate. Gordy and I won the first game easily. I know this because my camera is full of wonky shots of the board.



At midnight we put the telly on and watched Big Ben (for once we didn't have to have Jools Holland on, who I despise). We cracked open more champagne and rushed outside to watch the fireworks. We could hear them but couldn't see any, but we could see a load of sky lanterns. Mattgreen climbed up on the gate post to get a better view.



After that we came in and listened to our first song of 2010 which had to be the choon of the night, Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. Here are Matt, Gordy and Will doing the "Ra ra raah!" action:



Time rolled by. We got the Amaretto out and started playing Perudo. For some reason I decided to document this in video format:



That video creases me up.
And here is the conclusion:



I think we finally went to bed about 3am. We'd drunk the bottle of Amaretto and made pretty good progress into the second one. Here is a lovely photo montage of how gorgeous we all looked by that point:



You can leave your verdict on who looks the best in the comments.

So as you can see, a great time was had by all! And I didn't even have too much of hangover the next day - at least nothing a cold dog walk and a hot chip butty couldn't solve.

Happy New Year!