I walk into the New Year not knowing what to expect from the town. Discarded plastic bottles roll along the streets, more evidence of the lack of a bin collection last week than any sign of revelry. The occasional figure or two moves the gloom, but it’s only when I near the centre of town that I hear the noise. There are three men at the taxi rank and several are crossing the road to join them. The noise is from outside The Angel. There seems like hundreds, which is probably an overestimation, but that is what it sounds like. They’ve evidently all just come out and they shout and holler as if they are still inside. Kids, mostly – that is, students returned or local teenagers. It is New Year and it needs to be celebrated, noisily, evidently. I cut down a side-street.
I expected to be woken by fireworks at twelve but there was nothing. I slept through till 1.15am. A wild night. Perhaps there wasn’t the will or inclination to see it in by us older inhabitants. A damp squib of an Eve.
