I live in this little court. Quite a nice area and we had friendly neighbours and we all knew each other. Come New Year's Eve and I'd been prepared to spend a nice quiet evening at home with the wife and possibly the kids if they deigned to stay home, which was rather unlikely. My lovely wife, Marie, persuaded me otherwise.
"You're coming to the party," she told me. "We've spent a lot of time organising it and you will be there."
I looked at her considered the depth of her sincerity, and said, "Yes, dear."
Apparently the wives in our little court had got together and decided to throw a New Year's Eve party. A costume party, no less. Costumes were optional so I told Marie that I'd just wear casual clothes and go along as a Grumpy Old Bastard. Playing in character, is what she termed it. Not that I'm that old. In my thirties, is all, and my grumpiness tends to be reserved for the more idiotic idiots that frequent the planet.
The party was being held in number ten, mainly because they had the biggest house and the biggest yard. We'd all be able to attend and circulate without bumping into each other every time we turned around.
We strolled along to the party, the wife and I and the kids. Apparently she'd put the hard word on them, as well. That and the fact that she changed the password on the wi-fi persuaded them to attend, especially as she wouldn't tell them what the new password was.
I wandered around, beer in hand, chomping on any food that came within range. If this had been a party without the kids I'd have had a beer in both hands and deferred the food until later, but with them about I had to be a responsible adult and show a good example. If I didn't they'd tell Marie, the little wretches.
By eleven I'd had a couple of beers and was nicely relaxed, the calorie intake from the snacks making sure that the alcohol wasn't working on an empty stomach. It was working on me, though, I can assure you.
In my earlier wanderings I'd come across this pretty young thing dressed as a Drum Majorette. She certainly filled out that costume the way it was supposed to be filled. She looked up at me, smiled, and said, "Hi, Mike."
I blinked and looked harder, overlooking the costume and concentrating on the face, which suddenly became quite familiar.
"Jan," I said smiling. "Haven't seen you for a while. How have you been going?"
Jan was our ex baby-sitter. She'd stopped being our sitter once the kids got old enough to sit themselves. (Old enough. Not necessarily responsible enough. There were a couple of incidents.)
Jan brought me up to date on her news and seemed quite happy to flirt with me. That was fine by me and I flirted back just as happily. Marie came wandering past at one stage to say hullo and then the three of us drifted apart again.
Now, with an hour to go to midnight, I bumped into Jan again. She had a drink in one hand, a plate in the other, and her baton in a third. As she only owned the regulation two hands she was finding it all a little difficult.
I laughed at her problem, took the baton from her and slipped it under her belt.
"You can take it and put it inside for a while and collect it before you leave," I told her. "Now how about I hold either your drink or your plate while you deal with the other?"
She laughed and handed me her plate. Then she seemed to just inhale her drink, handed me the glass, and started tearing into the food she'd snagged.
"See. All little problems have simple solutions. Which is one reason why I'm happy to see you here tonight."
She gave me an inquiring look and I smiled gently.
"It's about New Year resolutions," I explained. "Did you make any last year?"
