What are you doing New Year’s Eve?

A couple of days before Christmas, I met my friend Nipun for brunch at Dishoom. He had booked in advance, as one must do in these times.

A member of staff met us outside and briefed us on the Covid regulations. As we left her and made for the door, I overheard her speaking into her radio.

“Nipun is coming inside.”

After the obligatory hand-sanitising inside the door another acolyte explained that we would be dining downstairs today and presented us with our individual pre-sanitised menus.

We moved on.

“Nipun is on his way downstairs” I heard from behind me.

I felt like I was brunching with POTUS. An entirely appropriate level of deference to be shown to a former skipper of the Holy Cross Second Eleven, I’d say.

Christmas Day I spent with my mum, making occasional Zoom contact with London. It was a quieter Christmas than usual. Mum and I watched the original 1969 version of The Italian Job in the afternoon.

We then watched a “making of” documentary on YouTube. Among the many interesting things I learned was that BMC (manufacturers of the Mini at the time) were less than helpful to the filmmakers, despite the picture turning out to be a feature-length advert for their car, whereas Fiat in Turin bent over backwards to assist them. 

Perhaps the most startling discovery was to do with a scene set in a prison towards the end. As news of the success of the job filters back to the Guv’nor, the inmates started repeatedly chanting “England!” as he regally descended a stairway. The documentary revealed that the prison used was Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, which was used as a place of incarceration (and execution) for Irish Revolutionaries, by order of the UK Government. And all these ‘inmates’ in the film were Irish extras, and here they were chanting “England!” in a place where the Irish were historically oppressed by the English.

Quite remarkable.

I stayed over at mum’s Christmas Night, in order to make best use of the Bailey’s which I’d brought with me specially.

Woke up Boxing Day to the realisation that – despite remembering to pack many of the essentials, namely Bailey’s and marmalade (I was unsure of the Marmalade Situation in mum’s house) – I had forgotten clean pants.

By cutting down on the laundry in this way I like to think I was doing my bit for the environment, although perhaps not my immediate environment.

When I got home I watched the 2003 version of The Italian Job. I cannot honestly remember if I changed my pants first or not. I do remember noticing that the beautiful Passo Fedaia was featured in the film, which is a spot in the Dolomites that we skied earlier this year. Seems like a long time ago now.

So, what are you doing New Year’s Eve? 

Literally every year, I hear people declaring that the outgoing year has been the worst ever, and they’ll be glad to see the back of it. It always mystifies me, as if the calendar year has somehow been responsible for their difficulties – that their problems started on 1 January that year, and will assuredly end on 31 December.

Without even getting to Hogmanay itself, I have already read a version of this multiple times in the media, which is no surprise in this strange year, but it might be worth remembering, before we curse 2020 and write it off as a “terrible year”, that 2020 – in and of itself – didn’t produce Covid-19. The virus is not tied to a specific timeframe, and will, I imagine, continue to cause problems for us well into 2021.

Also, January and February 2020 were good to us. I skied the Passo Fedaia (quite badly, if I recall correctly) in January. I saw some great films – JoJo Rabbit, 1917, Parasite, and Bad Boys For Life. Well, that last one is possibly not in the “all-time great” category. I got to celebrate a friend turning 50. 

And then, as March wore on and the sense of something serious happening ramped up, my jury service was gloriously cancelled.

2020 was a year when my daily routine and job were redefined. It’s been a year of deepened friendships, long walks, a rediscovery of the beauty of my adopted hometown, a chance to slow down a little, and breathe more. For others it has been much, much more traumatic than this. 

But even so, it strikes me as a strange thing in which to put your faith for change – the turning over of the calendar year.

I like the way that a new year starting presents us with what feels like a fresh start, a chance to begin again. But really, nothing actually changes on New Year’s Day. Which might be at least part of the reason that so many feel so depressed in January – as the New Year celebrations fade and Hogmanay’s balloon is punctured by the sinking realisation that all the previous year’s troubles haven’t disappeared with the turning of a page. And January, in Scotland anyway, has more than its fair share of dark and dreary days.

This is one of the reasons that I love going skiing towards the end of January – something fun to look forward to during those days. Skiing is cancelled this year, of course. As are dinners out with friends, the way I traditionally like to bring in the New Year.

So what are you doing New Year’s Eve? Whatever you’re doing, let’s not blame all our woes on 2020. It had some good times too. Here’s to more of those in TwentyTwentyFun! (© Party Jen)

The Shortest Day

Today is the shortest day for the UK. And the whole northern hemisphere, I daresay. For confirmation I looked up the sunrise times for Edinburgh on timeanddate.com, and was quite startled to discover that tomorrow the sunrise will be a minute later than today. And then another minute later on 27th, before finally beginning to recede on 30th December. The good news is that the sunset also started getting fractionally later four days ago, and so today really is the shortest day.

Incidentally, while entering my location into the website, I also discovered that there’s a place called “Edinburgh of the Seven Seas” in St Helena – nestled sort of slap bang in the middle of the South Atlantic between southern Africa and South America. They have a fair bit more sunlight than us at this time of year. I made a mental note to visit Edinburgh of the Seven Seas one day. Ideally in January. 

On a windy day, back in October, I ran a 5k along the Promenade at Portobello. Actually it was closer to 6k, but I don’t like to brag. The sky was bluish-grey, indeed almost everything looked bluish-grey. It was blowing a hoolie, and the breakers were in good voice. 

To the east there was a golden stripe along the coast, as the stretch from Musselburgh round to Longniddry still caught the early evening sunshine.

I think it was that day I decided to move to Portobello.

The sound of waves on the beach, most recently experienced on my much-documented stay in Aberdeen and the North East, have seduced me.

So I moved, and here I am. I found a great little flat – just back from the Promenade. If you crane your neck at a certain angle through one of the windows you can claim a sea view, but – more importantly – I hear the waves every night.

I have successfully quashed, without a great deal of difficulty, the wild spirit within me that has wanted to join the open-water swimmers, who take to the sea on a daily basis; sometimes wet-suited, sometimes in a two-piece (they’re nearly all women), and all looking either a little mad, or bad-ass, or frequently both.

I saw one today on my beach walk back from the Post Office, in a swimsuit, with woolly hat and proper wetsuit-type gloves. Still trying to make sense of that particular combo.

The flat I’m in is one of a block of six, in a little development of several blocks. The neighbours are friendly. I recently encountered Irene, who has been here since the development was built in 1986. I like to think of her as the Scheme Tsar. Then I met an old dear – Joy – while we were out emptying our bins.

“Are you the new man?” she asked.

I replied that – yes – I think I was. 

“I’m Andrew!” I said, with that knowing look which says I would shake your hand right now under normal circumstances, but I can’t, so I’ll nod my head slightly, which will have to do.

“Oh I know who you are,” she responded. “Irene wrote about you in The Newsletter.”

I have a fairly strict and entirely self-inflicted “no-emoji” rule when writing in this blog, having occasional and loosely-held pretensions to being “a writer”.

However it would be now that I would insert a face-with-wide-open-eyes emoji to adequately reflect my response to this bombshell. Possibly the face-screaming-in-fear as well.

We have a “Newsletter”? And I was featured in it?

I have still not seen any sign of this publication, but I promise to report back when I do.

In other news, my move to Portobello has precipitated a grave and serious change in my circumstances, in that I have now moved outside my GP Practice’s Boundaries of Care. And so, being a Good Citizen and thus unwilling to continue to claim medical care from a distant practice, and also conscious that GPs can be inordinately prickly about such matters, I have re-registered with my local practice in Porty.

At least, I think I have. I posted my lengthy application into the box that I was instructed to. I only lied (accidentally) about one thing, in the box where I was to note my weekly alcohol unit intake, in which I unthinkingly put a number which would have definitely been true pre-Covid, but has now been somewhat, um… superseded.

Thereafter I was expecting to receive, if not a glossy Welcome Pack, at least a brief email acknowledging my existence and that I had kept my handwriting inside the correct boxes. None has been forthcoming. I realise that a GP practice is not exactly a country club, but surely this is not too much to expect?

This morning, while the sun is shining and I (craning my neck at the appropriate angle) can catch a glimpse of sunlight glinting on the sea, I find myself inside, glued to the HMRC website, where I am trying to gain access to a webchat with an advisor.

It’s proving to be an experience similar to the Pool of Siloam. Every time the “speak to an advisor” link appears, I click on it, at which point a pop-up box asks for my name and question. Which I provide, as quickly as possible. The question has been reduced to “hi” in the interests of speedily initiating a chat. However, regardless of how how little I type and how fast I type it, I am invariably met with the response “All our advisors are busy at the moment, try again.”

The reason I am here is because I have been trying to help my mother with her self-assessment tax return. The HMRC system, in its infinite wisdom, has decided it cannot verify her identity. It requires two pieces of identification from her to do this, one of which is a passport, which she no longer has.

They have an alternative way to prove you are who you say you are, which involves registering with a Trusted Company (I chose the Post Office), who proceed to ask you for details about yourself, stopping just short of asking you how many freckles you have on your left forearm.

Even with this inquisition completed, the System was unable to verify my mother’s identity. And thus it has deemed her unable to submit an online tax return.

We can still submit the paper version, of course. Deadline for that was 31 October. But doing this, and paying the resulting fine, seems the only way forward. I find it somewhat unacceptable that my mother has to pay a fine as a result of HM Government being unable to verify her identity, even though her identity hasn’t changed even slightly since this time last year, when we successfully completed an online tax return. And the year before that…

Here in Scotland we go into Tier 4 (ie the maximum) from Boxing Day. Tougher on everyone, but still not as bad as March. London is properly locked down already.

And I note from a brief visit to the Post Office today, that all services to Europe have been suspended. Brexit AND Lockdown. It’s quite the dysfunctional cocktail.

But today is the shortest day. Tomorrow, we begin the long slow climb into brighter days. Days when the light burns a little longer, and a little warmer. And though the climb is long and slow, and it’s hard to note any difference for a while, it’s happening nonetheless. 

Slow and steady, but from tomorrow, we’re climbing again.

Stay safe, and happy Christmas to all my long-suffering readers. ❤️

(It’s only a fairly strict no-emoji policy).