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Debbie Leigh: New Year state of mind
IT'S the annual decision that's one of the toughest to make – deciding how to spend NYE.
Never mind the enormous pressure to have the best night of the year – despite taxi fares and club entry fees doubling – and to be looking into the eyes of your loved ones as the clock strikes midnight, it's also one of those choices that people will judge you on.
Last year, we decided to have a quiet night in with a few DVDs.
And there's just no getting round it – that's about as cool as reading Peaches Geldof's nonsense on Twitter.
Still, I suppose as we get set to enter yet another decade, we could just be grateful that all we have to worry about is where to go and who to share it with.
Remember this time 10 years ago?
People were convinced planes were going to fall out of the sky, the world was going to start spinning backwards and talking animals would take over the planet – or something equally mental.
But seriously, instead of spending the last few months of the 90s planning their outfits for the biggest global party of their lifetime, the worrywarts were busy getting their knickers in a right old twist, panicking about the Y2K bug.
Remember? The deadly millennium bug expected to bring the planet to a standstill and send every computer into meltdown because they weren't designed to cope with the number 2000.
Needless to say, I wasn't one of the worriers wasting my time stressing over IT problems best left to the boffins.
In fact I was practically oblivious to all the hand-wringing.
I was too busy plotting the most exciting NYE I figured I would ever see, with a pack of similarly hedonistic-minded backpackers, in New South Wales, Oz.
Forget pondering complex concepts like digital documentation and data storage, we had far more pressing issues to resolve.
Like how to get all our booze, decks, records and mates to and from the idyllic cottage we'd hired in the middle of the glorious green hills of Byron Bay.
Realising it's now 10 whole years since that landmark – when of course the world simply carried on rotating as normal and sadly, animals didn't attempt to overthrow the Government – I couldn't help thinking back to some previous NYEs.
I know plenty of people moan about the December 31 knees-up being an anti-climax but I'm one of the few who always looks forward to a jolly good smash-up on the last day of the year, so it was a highly entertaining trip down memory lane for me.
And before you even think that if I can remember them all I clearly wasn't having enough fun – as Mr N suggested – the opposite is actually true.
The reason I can pinpoint every one from the past decade is that they were all (ok, aside from a couple of damp squibs) absolutely unforgettable.
And that's because most of them were spent with the same long-standing fun-loving BFs who don't need the excuse of NYE to party like its 1999.
So here's the (slightly censored) breakdown of my noughties NYEs.
* 1999-00 Byron Bay – fireworks and house party. Among the first in the world to welcome the new millennium. Watched the sun come up. Unbelievably great.
* 00-01 Manchester – fancy dress house party with BFs, plus lookalikes of Oasis, Marilyn, Lara Croft, Batman, Robin and Britney, to name a few. Hilarious.
* 01-02 Glasgow – pubs with then boyfriend and his mates. Average.
* 02-03 Manchester, clubbing with BFs. BF had to fly back to the US at 7am on New Year's Day. Ended with tearful farewell at Manchester Airport.
* 03-04 Chicago – loft party with BF and different boyfriend. Glamour somewhat hampered by temperatures around 10C below freezing – but still amazing.
* 04-05 Manchester – clubbing with BFs – NYE, NYD and Jan 2. Jan 3 – bed-ridden and sick. Outrageous but brilliant.
* 05-06 Leeds – house party. Very drunk girl (not me) fell downstairs and broke her toe. Disappointing.
* 06-07 North Yorkshire, dinner party. Brother and sister-in-law-to-be's for amazing meal. Good clean family fun.
* 07-08 Manchester – clubbing with BFs and husband. Mr N stomped off to sleep in car because it was so noisy in the flat.
* 08-09 At home in Leeds – watched two terrible films including Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In bed by 12.20am. Highlight was when our mates popped round on their way to a fancy dress party. Too tame.
* 09-10 Manchester – The Deaf Institute, for a good old boogie with the BFs and hubby again. Well, if it ain't broke…and all that.
So that's the venue and partners-in-crime sorted for the final NYE of the decade.
Now I've just got to figure out what I'm wearing.
Now that really is the toughest decision of the year!
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Weather for Leeds
Sunday 12 February 2012
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