The Early Days of a Better Nation

Saturday, January 01, 2005


Tradition

South Queensferry is the home of the Loonie Dook, a New Year's Day charity event where people take a swim in the chill waters of the Firth of Forth. Today's rain is so heavy that you can have a loonie dook by taking a walk. If the thunder I'm hearing is anything to go by, you can get electrocuted while you're at it. Before midnight last night we went out to a nearby rise with a good view of the Firth, and watched while fireworks rose all around the horizon like tiny flowers, and lasers played on the low clouds like flying saucers from a frivolous alien civilization. Eventually the beams settled into a saltire shape, the proclaimed object of the exercise. By this time we'd gone inside, phoned near and far, and were well into the shortbread and single malt.

New Year's Day is like a month of Sundays. Everywhere's closed, it isn't Christmas, and you have a double Neurofen hangover. In other words, pure dead brilliant. Here's to next year.

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