2011

We've been here before. Fireworks light up the London sky, silhouetting the famous skyline in the December night. The air is thick with coloured smoke pouring across the river, and thousands of revellers link arms and gloved hands on the embankment. For the sake of Auld Lang Syne, they sing, more from blind enthusiasm I suspect, than any desire to bury the hatchet and live at peace with their fellow man. After all, observes Rich, they'll all be heading for the same tube stations, the same trains and the same seats in a minute. No time for all that selfless stuff.

We watch the scenes of the London Eye, illuminated blue, the bright Westminster clockfaces showing 12:15 am and the dark snaking Thames weaving through the city. And with a flick of a remote control, the TV screen goes black and the year 2011 begins.

We've been here before, I remind myself, looking around the room. There's a bright red bauble perched in the branches of Cerys and Rich's tree and a bulb flashes slowly on and off in its spherical reflection. Time, I think to myself, has spun our own little globe once around the burning sun. The snow, the spring, the leafy hot summer and misty autumn have all come and gone, and we are here. What will we make of it, this new year?

I'm not one for predicting, but I suspect it'll be a mixed bag. Last year was, and the year before that was as well. And it always is. And anyway, like a blank piece of paper or an untouched canvas, what lies ahead is almost entirely down to us. Make of it what you will, says the one who holds the stars. Ok boss.