Well that’s New Year’s resolution number one out of the window and we’re not even a week into 2024.
I failed at the first hurdle in my mission to be in bed before midnight every night and it’s all Claudia Winkleman’s fault.
On Wednesday I decided to watch the first episode of the second season of The Traitors on BBC One thinking it would be a good way to unwind before bedtime.
This plan was scuppered by my inability to leave a cliffhanger hanging and I ended up binge watching the first three episodes on iPlayer until knocking on 1am.
What was that The Traitors just said?
Not only that, but I roped in the rest of the family too and because of all their yapping over the telly (everyone’s got an opinion in our house) we had to keep rewinding to hear bits of conversation we missed.
Pause The Traitors, it’s snack time
Several times during this marathon streaming session we had to put it on pause to take the dog out and gather snacks.
We have no shortage of those after I went on a marathon shopping trip for New Year’s Eve party food and ended up with enough to keep us going until March.
As the rest of the household is refusing to eat any more of a 100-piece Indian Party Platter, I’ve been living on mini vegetable samosas and onion bhajis for the entire first week of January.
That’s not to mention leftover chicken satay skewers, mini pizzas, and a forlorn-looking tinfoil and cocktail-stick hedgehog who appears baffled as to why no one likes cheese cubes with pickled onions anymore.
Alright, so they may be deeply unfashionable, but in the sage words of my friend Gillian, a party is not a party without a hedgehog and if anyone knows anything about parties, it’s her.
I recall one Hogmanay when she wouldn’t stop singing Islands In The Stream on the karaoke and the neighbours called the police when she was still going at lunchtime on January 1.
On the search for Snowballs
Another party essential that was out of fashion by 1985 is a Snowball. I don’t mean the sort you throw, I mean the advocaat cocktail in those little bottles.
That was another mission I embarked on over New Year period, this time in the Asda drinks aisle at Garthdee.
It took me, my daughter, an Asda shop assistant and two fellow shoppers to track them down, but we eventually discovered four bottles of Snowballs tucked back on the bottom shelf.
While we searched I tried to describe a Snowball to the young shop assistant and reminisced with people about its starring role in festive seasons gone by.
Ten minutes after finding this alcoholic Holy Grail, I found myself trying to spell maraschino cherries to another shop assistant as she typed it into her “look up item” device.
Again, I had to explain what a maraschino cherry was and why it’s integral to the whole Snowball experience.
When she showed me a picture of glace cherries for cakes in the baking aisle, I decided it was time to call it a day.
This was the third supermarket I’d visited in as many hours and there’s only so much price running I can do on multipacks of crisps before I have to lie down in a darkened room.
I headed home with enough party food to cater an event for 500 guests and not just the seven friends we had invited round to watch the Fireballs.
Leading roles in BrewDog the movie
Two people who know plenty about drinking trends are BrewDog co-founders Martin Dickie and James Watt, who have enjoyed massive success with tipples such as Elvis Juice.
So famous is this Ellon-based brewer’s story that it’s being made into a movie.
It has the working title Underdog: The rise of BrewDog, and there is chatter about Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt playing the leads.
It’s not known if Tom Cruise will perform his own stunts in Ellon, such as rafting down the River Ythan and queueing at the relaunched chipper at teatime on a Friday, but you never know.
Talk of food has made me hungry, so if you’ll excuse me I have a Tupperware full of mini pakoras in the fridge I have to go reanimate.
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