248. Happy new year 🥂🍾

It feels a little strange leaving the house at this time of night in the middle of winter to go on a picnic. But it is not any picnic. It is a midnight picnic. And not just a midnight picnic but a new year’s eve midnight picnic. 

‘That’s sounds like an excellent idea!’ My husband had said when I suggested we scrapped all of the usual plans and suggested this.

‘Excellent indeed!’

‘I knew you would like it. We get to try out the vehicle. And we get to try out the Christmas present.’

We have decided to drive towards the coast. There is no moon. It is a very dark night. There are no cars on the streets and the town looks dreary even with all the Christmas lights. In the vehicle my husband has got the radio and the heating going. We could drive for hours. The engine is noisier than your normal family car but it is restful, a kind of deep rumbling in the background. Each lost in our thoughts. My husband’s probably on the mechanics of it all, mine on the landscape and what it would be like if we drove like this for days on end.

We take the motorway for a while and it is like it has been cleared for us. I feel like a president on a tour. Soon we hit the coastal road. We cannot see anything at all and almost miss the turn off to the cliffs. We stop and I get out of the car. It is pitched dark and I cannot even see the path. The wind is blowing so hard I have to hold on to the door. Within seconds I feel as if I am going to freeze over on the spot.

‘Too cold. Too windy. Too dark.’

‘Ok. Let’s move on.’

We are off again, this time we drive down from the top of the cliffs to the beach. The road winds and turns and because we are on quite a steep slope the car’s headlights reveal the grassy banks and the grey swirl of the road. At the bottom we can now see the lights of the tiny village, one restaurant with its brightly lit windows, a Christmas tree standing swaying in the wind in the middle of the roundabout. We slow down, discussing which turn off to take when suddenly three policemen come out of nowhere (were they hiding behind the Christmas tree?) and wave their arms in funny ways. Luckily my husband understands this arm-waving code. He stops.

‘Vous parlez français ?’

‘Oui.’ My husband says with no hesitation. 

I keep quiet. I put on a stupid smile on my face. I am convinced this way I look as someone who does not understand a word of french and they’ll leave me alone. I smile too to show them I am sorry they have to spend the night on a windy roundabout in the middle of nowhere with only a Christmas tree for shelter.

They ask my husband to open the back of the vehicle which he does and proudly points to the picnic basket. I hope they dont ask him if they can join us. I only took one bottle of Champagne! Without a word and only with the mysterious arm waving they motion us away.

Once out of the village it is pitch dark again. We have decided to follow our instinct; the phones are off and the GPS banned. We drive down on a tiny road, sinking deeper and deeper below ground level. Through the window I see the grass dancing to the howling of the wind.

‘Nice road. Keep driving.’

We turn a sharp corner and the road widens a little. We take it very slowly hoping to find a nice spot to have our picnic. We are sheltered from the wind here, everything is quiet now. Suddenly in the bright full beams of the vehicles … the sea! Dark menacing waves heaving and crashing on the tarmac of the dead-end road.

‘The tide is high.’ My husband says, matter-of-factly.

We sit and watch. The water is dirty and muddy and the waves crash so noisily we can hear the noise over the noise of the engine. After a while, we reverse and park the vehicle below a hedge, sheltered from the wind. We get out, pull the table out. Like kids on a Christmas morning we unbuckle the leather straps and release the real china plates, the real cutlery and the real glasses. We have napkins too and a little chopping board with a very sharp knife in its leather case. We lay the food: toasted pain brioché and foie gras. I have brought a candle in a glass jar and I lit it. The candle light is flickering in the cold night air, the glasses, the bottle and the knifes shimmering and making the scene picture perfect. Time to greet the new year. We pop the Champagne open. I have brought some mistletoe too. We clink our - real - glasses and kiss each other under the mistletoe which I hold over our heads.

After a while we decide to sit inside the vehicle. The special ‘parking heater’ starts right away. (We will have to compliment Baby who helped setting it up.) We drink (at least I do) and we talk and we make plans for the years ahead of us. There are two lighthouses in the distance above us and their beams flash into the sky and the sea, a quiet regular swoosh of light in the dark dark night. Our own special fireworks.