I have recovered sufficiently from the island New Year’s party to write to you. We had way too much fun and to be perfectly honest with you, I did not get up at five am the following morning. If I had, I would have only had three hours sleep. Three hours sleep at my advanced age takes easily twenty nine hours of recovery. With my 2019 New Years resolution to get up at five am forgotten for the moment, we got up at 8 today. Fully refreshed and ready to take on the world.

This year’s party was organized by one of our own, who had lots of new, great ideas. Local talent were invited to play a couple of sets after dinner. One of our younger neighbours sang three of his original songs. Then a member of one of our more long term families sang four songs. The highlight of which was a parody of Hotel California which he and his wife had written. Honest to Pete, hilarious.

Then, two of our newer residents hosted a music bingo game. So much fun. We were handed bingo cards and dobbers. They would play a song and if you had the song title on your card, you got to dob it. The greatest part of the game was singing along to the music when you had figured out what song it was. I’m not sure if it is a common occurrance when the game is played or the fact that we were well into our refreshments but for a group of people who by and large are a pretty smart crowd, there was much confusion as to what constitutes a cross pattern on a bingo card, to win the game.

Dancing didn’t start until close to eleven,when E played his role as DJ. The hall filled close to midnight for the countdown on the giant screen. Our numbers swelled from forty to perhaps fifty. Once the traditional Auld Lang Syne was complete, we returned to the dance floor.

E and I got home at two in the morning.

This is going to be a big year for us. Our son is getting married and E will celebrate twenty years with his new heart. We haven’t traveled anywhere interesting for a very long time and are looking forward to a big trip in March.

We have much to be grateful for and much to look forward to. With respect to the tradition of a New Years resolution, I hereby resolve to enjoy every single

moment of 2020