New Year - London 2012

I've not posted up for a while. The run up to Christmas had been a bit hectic at work and trying to fit in Christmas shopping, visiting family, blah, blah...

Anyway, finally the pandemonium of Christmas was over and the New Year conundrum arrived to take its place as usual. What to do? Where? And most importantly, who with?

For me this year the last question was already answered. I would spend it with my beautiful new girlfriend. No question about it. Because of this, the other two questions  seemed less important. It didn't really matter where or what we did, we'd be together and were guaranteed to have a good time.

So after a couple of hours of last minute changes of plans, scouring of the internet to find the best places to see in the New Year in London, we decided there was only one place we could be on our first New Year together. At the greatest show on earth, right at the front on the Thames watching the fireworks.

So off we trotted. We stocked up with some new warm clothes and a bottle of champagne. We filled ourselves with a large plate of delicious hot food from Whole Foods and we were set.

We came out at Charing Cross at about 6pm and walked down to the embankment, the crowds slowly building the nearer we got to the river. We found our friends Roger and Adriana and settled in for the long wait ahead.

Our makeshift campsite consisted of us sitting on the floor on bright pink House of Fraser bags. Several games of Uno! later and lots of chatting and we hit 8pm. 4 hours still to go and we're all asked to stand up to allow room for everyone as the crowds were building up.

The last four hours somehow seemed to sail by. It's all a bit of a blur now in my mind. There was a toilet trek which took about 30 minutes.  A guy climbed a tree to rapturous rounds of applause followed by screams of 'jump, jump, jump...'.

At about 10 pm Nihal came over the sound system and the party really started. We laughed, bounced, screamed, danced and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves for the next two hours. Everyone was smiling, couples were hugging and kissing, everyone was singing and jumping. From Kings of Leon to Salt n' Pepa, they played it all. And we LOVED IT!

We went live to the BBC at about 11.40 pm and we knew we were in the home straight. Everyone was getting really excited now. We'd made it. 6 hours of waiting were finally over...

The countdown began. 60 seconds was put on the clock, everyone was screaming the numbers out as it ticked down, Big Ben started booming the last chimes of 2012, the place was electric.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6 ,5, 4, 3, 2, 1..... BOOM!

The fireworks go off and it was stunning, spectacular, jaw dropping. As the sky was lit up with all the colours of the rainbow and the champagne corks started to pop, everyone was reminiscing over the year just gone by and what they wanted from the next one.

The fireworks ended to huge cheers, crowds of people from all nations, all backgrounds, all colours and creeds got together and had a huge party on the street. There were no social or regional boundaries here.

This. Is. New. Year.

This. Is. London.

I love it and I love the wonderful time I've had seeing in the New Year with my gorgeous girlfriend on the bank of the River Thames.

Happy New Year to everyone!