1 january 2013, ...and a happy new year

After a week cruising the sunny islands of madeira and the canaries, as well as a packed stop off in morocco, we spend new year, as we almost always do, in budapest, with my other half's family. My eldest was on a quest to stay up all night, having been confounded last year when in an exception that proved the rule we stayed home and I pretty much made him and his friend give up the ghost at 4am when they woke me up. This year he had a bad night on the eve, an afternoon nap on the day, and woke up with a headache, so the two of us trekked a few blocks down to where we were staying (her father's flat) where he had a pill, brought his lunch back to celebrate too, and promptly fell asleep. I agonised about waking him or not, but he was so peaceful I decided against it. After all, new year will come again. For the first time in as long as I can remember therefore, I was marooned alone at midnight, unless you count a sleeping son and bill bryson, who kept me wonderfully entertained until somewhere near 1am when my wife escaped hungarian trivial pursuits and pizza with the other 9 kids to bid me, as I bid you, a happy 2013.