Thursday tomorrow
Just what are the delights and highlights of a normal Thursday?
Well, if we get lucky at work, there is pizza for lunch at the canteen, as opposed to the normal Thursday offering of Andouillette (pronounced OND WEE YET) – this very particular French delicacy is best translated in English as “tripe sausage” – it is a sausage-like looking food made from pigs intestines. It has more than a passing resemblance to a male sexual organ and it smells like the inside of a Russian weight lifter’s jockstrap after a competition. Andouilette will give you bad breath and bad indigestion – makes you wonder why anyone bothers to eat it – so just imagine when we get Pizza instead – it is party time.
Other Thursday highlights include double “Big Bang Theory” on TV and of course, the day after Thursday is Friday, so come Thursday afternoon, it is almost as if the weekend were here.
This Thursday is New Year’s Eve. (If you are reading this far later than I posted it, we are currently the 30th December 2015 and tomorrow we will be the 31st December 2015). HOORAY! It’s party time. Dust down your glad rags, uncork the champagne, roll back the carpet and get down to some groovy sounds. Oh dear, it sounds absolutely horrendous, although I suppose it depends on who you are with, the quality of the champagne and the type of music you are dancing to (or not); BUT this is New Year’s Eve and we MUST enjoy ourselves.
Whereas Christmas is celebrated with the family in France, New Year’s Eve is traditionally spent with friends. Of course we are all going to sit down first and stuff ourselves on smoked salmon, foie gras, oysters and such like, then just before midnight we will all head out to some symbolic place in town where hundreds of other revellers will have gathered, bottle of champagne in hand, ready to uncork the bubbly on the first chime of midnight, at which point as well, this being France we will kiss each other profusely on both cheeks – friends and even total strangers, we’ll be kissing each other until our lips are numb or we have twisted all our facial muscles and are in excruciating pain. After the eating, the kissing and the champagne, it’s time to head off to a disco and dance the night away, or just head home and start eating again.
Oh dear, I not being especially upbeat about New Year’s Eve in France.
Revelries aside, it is perhaps the symbolism that is more important. It is time to start anew. Time for resolutions or revolutions, time to wipe the slate clean, to forgive and forget … though in my experience most resolutions fall flatter and just as quickly as champagne bubbles.
Resolutions for 2016? Well, the same as last year try to be a better and more considerate person. Try to give more time to others, try to be less selfish. This is going to be a big year for my daughter – her last year at high school. In a couple of weeks she has to make crucial choices about further studies, starting with the question “What do you want to do?” Not an easy choice. The question is more or less “what do you want to do with the rest of your life?”
I suppose my resolution this year will be to accompany and support my daughter in her choices, even if they prove to be the wrong choices in the long run. What the hell, even if you make a lousy choice now, then at least you have had some kind of learning experience and you know what you don’t want to do. Nothing is ever negative and everything is lessons learned.
My resolution for the moment though try and enjoy my New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Happy New Year folks.
Chez Nick 