NYE & N's Birthday 30/12/24 - 05/01/25

I went back to work on the Monday and Tuesday but in a very low-key way: rare WFH days where I was mainly able to just try to catch up on casenotes without too many interruptions. I went for brisk, functional, local walks as soon as a I finished both days, to try to ensure I had at least vaguely moved around, then just had another chilled night in with N and a crossword on the Monday, although Housemate J came back, being our festive mastery of the house to an end. Tuesday was New Year's Eve although our plans were very minimal, heading down to Dalston for a chilled out evening with T&A and their omnipresent friend J: it had snacks, chatting and Jools Holland, heading home pretty much as soon as it turned midnight, but it was nice to spend it with people.

We tried going for a walk on New Year's Day but the curse of NYD struck again and we'd only really managed to walk the length of Victoria Park before the intensity of the rain convinced us to change our plans: we found a cafe and had a bit more of a wander before heading home, although went out again the evening for some food at a Japanese place in Hornsey, which N's friends C&S joined us for and was really nice. I was back in the office and one of the drop-ins on Thursday but managed to have one more WFH day on Friday before it all went back to normal, heading out in the evening to meet Ketch at the New X Inn for my first gig of the year. First up were Boxer, who were fairly standard indie lads: we were there for firm faves Adult Cat who it was good to see at full strength again and played a couple of new songs. Last on were The Fifth Estate a vibey six-piece from Lincoln featuring a trumpet, but a lot of the crowd had cleared out, which they were clearly pretty deflated by.

I did my shop in the morning on Saturday, then after lunch we walked down to The Three Crowns in Stoke Newington where N was again celebrating his birthday: we had about 15 folks coming and going through the afternoon (plus a couple of pre-schoolers who soon gravitated to each other, then the other children in the pub). a Whilst the timing used to be N's curse, we have a pretty regular and reliable crowd across both our birthdays and it was a nice chance for everyone to reconnect after returning from their various festivities. After a brief drama when C's phone went home in T's bag, 8 of us headed along to the Blue Legume for dinner before calling it a night.

I went out late morning on Sunday, back in Stoke Newington for a wander around Abney Park Cemetery then I carried on down Kingsland Road as far as Spitalfields, where I grabbed some lunch before jumping on the tube into Soho for a rare trip to the cinema, catching Luca Guadignino's adaptation of Queer before it disappeared. Although beautifully made, it didn't quite live up the high hopes of the Director/Author combination: only really kicking into more of a Burroughs-y feel in the latter part. I headed home and cooked using more Xmas leftovers then had Family Zoomtime in the evening.