New Year Festivities

Absolutely spendid New Year darlings! Took Marco's private jet up to Edinburgh where he had invited a select party of 25 of us to celebrate Hogmanay at his newly acquired country seat. It is so nice when new money rescues old money. Particularly when the house, its treasures and staff are all kept as they were. I understand that he has even kept the old incumbents on as Housekeeper and Farm Manager respectively, although he has insisted that they are not to use their title in any correspondance or dealings with tradesmen as it may Undermine his Position. I would have thought that his having an Italian name and a very improbable double-barrell was enough to do that on its own, but no matter.

The celebrations were Splendid. As this was only Marco's second year in in this country he did rather well with keeping up the traditions of both his homeland and that adopted, although one's stomach did protest at the combination of haggis and zampone. I was picking splinters of piggy toe bones out of my teeth for the rest of the evening and Andrew nearly choked on one that was more wild boar than domestic piggy! Neither of us have ever really been fans of trotters. I know that our cook would never dream of cooking such Nasty Things! But we all agreed that the food was Excellent considering.

There was also a near miss - thank goodness! - when Marco decided to follow theItalian tradition of throwing old possessions out of the window to make room for a 'new start'. Lady G- fortunately snatched the 17th century priceless Chinese vase before it was hurled out of the drawing room window, although the 19th century Venetian mirror was not so fortunate! The beautiful Persian rug was also a little scorched by the throwing of the firecrackers, which was rather a pity, although it was of quite an Inferior Pattern and Unknown Provenance. As I was saying to Lady G -  while Marco was stamping out the sparks on the rug - Quite Honestly I rather fear for the rest of the house, but that is what happens when those Without Breeding acquire the means to own things that they have previously only been employed to clean or fix.

We played all of the usual parlour games, wink murder, blind man's buff (made rather easier after Marco's furniture throwing exhibition) and charades. I did rather well with 'The Lady and the Tramp' which was rather too easy with Bunty in the room! I was also terribly impressed with Marco's grandmother's 'The Story of O'. Who knew that one could remain so flexible into one's nineties?! Lady G- did rather struggle however with Free Willy and we all got terribly confused, but no more so than H. who woke up at that point and became Quite Agitated before being pacified with another 'wee dram'.

Then we all went first footing to the local village with many a dram to offer, but for some reason nobody was home at any of the 10 or so tiny, sweet little cottages that we knocked at, although I swear that the lights were all on before we started knocking and singing. What a shame they missed out on all of Good Cheer and Best Wishes that the 25 of us wanted to deliver after an evening of Celebrations. I know that Marco was also hoping to discuss his planning applications too which would have saved him some time! Pity.

Anyway, we all had a wonderful New Year and I am certain that 2011 will be another Vintage Year for all of us! After all as David has said 'we are All in this Together!' A little belt tightening never hurt anyone as I said to Nanny when I turned off her radiator.

Happy New Year!