Yesterday’s New Year’s Eve party at Mats and Annlotte’s was really nice, even though I was slightly dreading it, because it was a lot of people, and we had to dress up. I was also not looking forward to driving home super late, but as it turned out, we were 10 people, and I already knew 8 of them. The dressing up was not too onerous. Anders bought a new blazer on Monday, and I wore a black tunic dress with white embroidery over leggings and the white flower necklace that I bought ages ago to go with it. Comfortable and just fancy enough.
It was a potluck, and we had been asked to bring either a tapas-style appetizer, an entrée-style small dish, or a dessert. Anders made delicious pastry pockets filled with a mix of chorizo sausages, onion, tomato, cheese, and corn, with a sambal oelek flavored-crème fraiche sauce. He carefully made them not too spicy for me, and they were great. (I had two of the leftovers for lunch today!) There was bruschetta, an asparagus and fish/lobster paté, duck with bacon and baby brussels sprouts, mini brie bites, deer with roasted potatoes, and a couple of other delicious appetizers. Yum!
We played Hitster, which I had heard about but never played before. Two teams, women against the men, and while we held our own the first round, only losing by one card, we got clobbered during the second round after dessert. Turns out that Mats and Kenneth know the title and artist of nearly every single song ever produced. I felt fairly useless for most of the Swedish songs, but managed to be a little help when it came to 90s tunes.
In between rounds, Annelotte set up the dessert table. There was pannacotta with homegrown yellow raspberry jam, crème brûlée with blueberries, chocolate mousse, and (!!) mini pavlovas with raspberries, mango, lemon curd, and whipped cream. Heaven! I managed to only have a pavlova and a little mousse. Delicious. Can’t resist a meringue!
Since the weather was absolute shit, we ended up staying indoors for midnight. It was raining sideways, super windy, and really cold, so no one wanted to go out at all. I called both Martin and Karin to wish them a Happy New Year too. They were both in Malmö (separately), having a fun time, and we could hear the fireworks going off like mad around them. We could see some fireworks above the trees near Ljungbyhed, but I wasn’t really paying attention. Seen enough fireworks in my lifetime, so it’s fine if I miss them once in a while.
After the second round of Hitster, Kenneth took their puppy (a huge beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback) home, and one other guest left as well. The rest of us had apple slices (good luck for the new year) and played a game of backwards Famous People, which was hilarious. Suzanne ended up with Daffy Duck and had no idea who it was. Looney Tunes aren’t very familiar to most Swedes. 😀 I had a really hard one, but got quite close, guessing that it was a cucumber character from a children’s book/song. Herr Gurka from Krakel Spektakel, which my kids had when they were little, but which I wasn’t really familiar with.
We didn’t leave until just after 2 am, and got home right at 3. URGH! The driving was okay, despite the pouring rain, as there wasn’t much traffic, though we did pass one apparently bad accident with multiple police cars and a firetruck. I woke up early this morning with a terrible tension/dehydration headache and it’s taken several ibuprofen to finally get it to ease up. Haven’t had one of those for quite some time.
Today, both Anders and I have been quite sluggish. He fell asleep in the living room, then went to the bedroom to read and ended up asleep again. I could have taken a nap too, but have decided to try and stay awake as I have to work tomorrow, and getting up early will be hard enough as it is, without making it worse by sleeping now and staying up too late. I’ve been alternating reading the book group book (ugh, disappointing), working on the roses jigsaw puzzle, and working on my 2024 blog book. The weather is still complete shit, worse than yesterday and super windy, so I’m very glad we had no plans today and no reason to go outside.
Happy New Year to anyone reading!
Mood: productive if tired
Music: Darren Hayes—Black Out the Sun