This year we decided to go up to London to see in the New Year, and we all wish that we hadn’t bothered.   Although our natural inclination is to take the train we drove up so Jayne could give her new sat nav a bit of a test. ((Never again!  Streatham High Street and Brixton were even worse than usual))  That was fun because there is a new road in the Coulsdon area which is not in it’s database so it looked like we were going cross-country.

After a bite to eat at the chippie under the railway lines we went off to get a place to see the fireworks.  I was probably at a disadvantage by knowing the area like the back of my hand because I knew exactly where I wanted to go and it was always blocked off by crowd control measures.

We ended up corralled onto Waterloo Bridge.   When we reached the middle of the bridge we stopped as there was a good view of the Eye.   There was a wait of a few hours for midnight, during which time we got cold and a bit wet, but not really complaining – its worth putting up with a bit of discomfort for one of the best fireworks displays in the world.

And then Big Ben struck midnight and the fireworks started.  After about 30 seconds there was enough smoke to start obscuring the view of the eye, and then we could not even see the fireworks themselves because the wind was letting the smoke drift in our direction.  We could hear all the bangs, but could see bugger all.

The frustration was that we could see reflections in the windows of Shell-Mex House and the National Liberal Club which told us that it was indeed a good display and that all those who had managed to get a place on the embankment did not have smoke in the way.

The last time I was in London for New Year was for the millennium, and I was on the Embankment right next to Westminster Bridge.  That really is the only place to be, unless you can get a nice office in Portcullis House overlooking the Thames ((Must make an effort to win in Horsham!))

Crowd control was a lot stricter than in 1999, which was a bit chaotic, but at times it was quite oppressive.  It turns out that we would not have been able to get from Waterloo Bridge to the Embankment anyway.  To get there we would have had to go further along and cross Blackfriars Bridge.  I am thinking that the right tactic in future would be to get a train into Charing cross which arrives just before midnight and then watch it all from the end of the platform.

So in the end we waited in the cold for at least 3 hours just to hear a lot of bangs from the other side of a smokescreen and 2008 started with an anti-climax, thus proving that it is possible to start something with an anti-climax.  Looking on the bright side, the year can only get better after such a dodgy start.

Anyway…happy New Year everybody!