Happy New Year

It's a fine, cool, sunny start to the new year and the new decade, and there are four extra kids about the place... hopefully not setting too much of a precedent.

We had our usual Flinthart movie night/watergun fight/barbecue evening to ring in the new year. Neighbours from uphill and down arrived. Much drinking and eating was done. Children ran about in all directions, spraying water.

When things finally calmed down enough, I discovered that a very large contingent of the visitors had never actually seen 'Big Trouble In Little China', which I think is the best thing John Carpenter ever managed to put on film. Chortling with delight, I cooked far more popcorn than is humanly feasible, and we settled back.

The film was new to most of the kids -- not mine, though! -- and the frequent action sequences were more than enough to keep them happy. The adults, who'd had just enough to drink to appreciate the sly parody underneath the action film, were equally entertained. Actually, I'd forgotten just how likable that movie is. If by some chance you've never seen it, you really do owe it to yourself to put it on, kick back, and have a blast.

It hadn't quite gone midnight when the film ended, so we called an intermission and went back down to the house. I made a bunch more popcorn, and the adults killed off a bottle of Kreglinger to toast the new year. Then we all trooped back up for 'Shaun Of The Dead', striking a balance between 'scary' and 'funny' that kept everybody happy. (I really wanted to put on 'Lair Of The White Worm', but there was a degree of dissent from adults who felt that Roman nun-rapage and giant dildo probings were probably not kid-appropriate... I suppose that's true.)

Thus, at about two in the morning, we folded our tents and called it a night. The Mau-Mau's best friend shared a bed with her (the girls stayed downstairs and watched cartoons. They were both tired as blazes from their previous night and day at the beach, so they didn't last long.) The three Mad Viking lads from down the hill occupied spaces on the mattresses up in the cinema zone, supplied with ample pillows, doonas, and so forth.

And I made my way to bed.

Happy new year, folks.