Living Without HepC

Carol and I went out on New Year’s Eve – drove into central London (as there was a Tube strike) and watched the New Year in standing on Waterloo Bridge, enjoying the fireworks along with thousands of others.

We had been very tempted to stay at home and watch on tv. But we do that a lot and it seemed important to get up and go out and join “the rest of the world”. And stop being so reclusive – have had a year of that!

Photos weren’t great – between my shaking hands and not being able to see the camera controls in the dark, I managed to take several very fuzzy pictures, so I didn’t even try to capture any fireworks. I decided to enjoy them ‘in the moment’ rather than be distracted by fiddling with photographic equipment I wasn’t operating very well. This is my best effort.

This can also be seen on Flickr.com

Despite bundling up with winter thermals and layers, I felt the cold very strongly that night – standing for an hour out in 0 degrees weather. Feeling the cold is a new phenomenon for me (started last year on treatment). I’m wondering if it is a permanent feature or still after effects of treatment. Others, including Carol, didn’t seem to mind the cold so much. Mind you, a lot of the crowd were feeling no pain at all. I was amazed at young people out and about with no coats on, young women with bare midriffs. Perhaps I’m also getting a wee bit old also, and don’t have that kind of stamina.

While it was amusing to se the disinhibited behaviour of people celebrating, it made me ponder why people can only allow themselves this kind of exuberance only when they’re fuelled with alcohol. And why people only greet total strangers and wish them well just once a year.

Fuelled only by goodwill, I wish everyone peace, happiness and good health in 2006!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.