Lunch

It's new year's day.
Day one of another year.
The first day of January 2014.

When I was sixteen I remember earnestly discussing George Orwell's novel, Nineteen Eighty Four, with my then high school peers. 1984 seemed an eon away.

And now, it's 2014. I re-read Nineteen Eighty Four last year...that is 2013.  Forty five years later I find the story depressing.


New year's day I find depressing too...the older I get. How I feel depends on how I spend the day. Or rather, how I spend new year's eve.

New year's eve December 2012 was dramatic, exciting, and fantastic. It was dangerous, unpredictable and invigorating.

Mr Honey Pie and I spent the eve with our youngest son, jostling for a prime position at his apartment car park from which we viewed the fire works display on Sydney Harbour. Arriving at my son's apartment was a life threatening event and I could write a short story on that day alone.  But it taught us a lesson which I felt would ensure we could still spend new year's eve in Sydney this time around, but better prepared.

That night, after the fireworks were over, we went to bed, but the rest of the city partied on until two in the morning, when miraculously someone must have flicked a switch to give way to complete silence.

We woke to a hot morning, the sun glaring into the apartment off the glistening waters of Lavender Bay.

Our favourite coffee shop was closed, perhaps they too had partied all night and needed some time to recuperate.  Eventually we managed to find another cafe for coffee and breakfast.

Perhaps I'm biased but I believe Sydney to be the best location in the world to bring in the new year.

My association with new year's eve and Sydney go back a long time. Our Mum often took us in to the city by train to witness the event.

When I married and had children Mr Honey Pie and I took our kids into the city on a few occasions to carry on the tradition.

Eventually though, what used to be a family event for many Sydneysiders, new year's eve became one to avoid as drunken revellers took to the streets.  The word had got out not only to the growing population of the largest city in Australia, but to the rest of the world too.

For many years, as young people flock to the inner city to live and tourist numbers to Sydney increase we avoided the harbour over this holiday. 

Then Mr Honey Pie landed a job which meant we, as a family, were entitled to spend new year's eve not only in Sydney, but on the harbour. Yes on the harbour.  Over the ten years that he held this employment we managed to visit our capital city four, five, maybe six times to see in the new year.  

When we could, we took extended family with us.

When the Olympic games came to Sydney we sailed out onto the inky water, one September night, to view the fireworks display celebrating the games coming to our city. That was in the year 2000.

What a year that was. Both Mr Honey Pie and I were employed in the marine industry and were closely involved in various ways with the organisers and sponsors of the games.  Every day that year, I travelled into the city to my office by train.  I breathed the Olympic games for  months before and after the event. 

It was an exciting time for me. And I had made sure I brought in the new decade, century and millennium the previous new year's eve by being on the harbour to enjoy the celebrations and fireworks put on my the Lord Mayor.

Just like, as a sixteen year old, I found it hard to look ahead to 1984, today it's hard to believe that the year 2000 was fourteen years ago.  

So much has happened in those fourteen years.  

My father never got to see the Olympic Games in Sydney, although he was there in September 1993 to hear Sydney declared the winner to host the 2000 Olympic Games.
  
The words in the heavy accent of Juan Antonio Samaranch "The winner is Sydney" are quoted to this day.  In 1998 my dad used the first three words of this now famous sentence to open his speech at my sister's wedding...that brought a laugh from his captive audience.

My brother though, made it to the Olympics only to leave us tragically in 2008.  

Since 2000 my family has seen grand parents become great grand parents; aunts and uncles become great uncles and great aunts; mums and dads become grand parents; sons and daughters become husbands and wives, mums and dads. And so the cycle continues.

Even though we experienced two devastating bush fires in the Blue Mountains in 2013, on a personal level the past year has especially been a memorable year for us.

My mum turned eighty, I turned sixty and our second son turned forty. We celebrated two baptisms and Mr Honey Pie, with some good ground work on his part landed himself a new position within walking distance from home. Our Grand Daughter started school, our eldest son married and our youngest became engaged.

Which brings me back to new year's eve 2013.

I had held out hope to be in Sydney on that night. With our youngest son and his fiancée and Mr Honey Pie, the Sydney Harbour Bridge on our right. Sydney Opera House on our left. Circular Quay directly in front of us. No car parks or jostling crowds this time. The perfect view, sitting in our own space, literally metres from the action. 

I'm still trying to figure out why I was the only person out of four that wanted that. That wished for it.  Just one more time.  To feel the explosions reverberating through my chest. To hear the unified oohs and aahs of the city as one more massive shower of colour opened out onto our city.

Instead we watched it on television. About seventy kilometres away from the abrasive city crowd. Not quite the same even if we now own our first ever big screen TV. 
Because that's what three out of four wanted.

On new year's day 2014 I had lunch with Mr Honey Pie, our youngest son and his fiancée at home, in the Blue Mountains.  A long, long way away from the probably still sleeping city of Sydney.

It was a delicious lunch of Thai style coconut chicken with salad and wraps.  Made for us by our future Daughter-in-law. Sometimes, I just have to go with the flow. And although a little disappointed (I'm going to allow myself that), I didn't feel one bit depressed.