El Andalous - Happy New Year (2021)

 

View from Azzurra

Well, happy new year, everyone. We’ve made it this far.

Even I didn’t do anything to see the new year in. However, I don’t think I did anything last year, either, so maybe it’s not a huge difference.

After Christmas, which was already two days running eating out (not that I’m complaining), I was invited round to a meal on the following Monday and Tuesday, so by the time I’d done all that, I was quite happy to spend some time on my own.

There’s a new set of people in Sahl Hasheesh at the moment. A lot of flats have been sold, new people are moving in, and the social circle is changing.

My first invitation was to Tina’s rental place in Azzurra (another residential block further up the hill from me). Tina’s been here a month and is loving it. She’s very sociable, so she’s made friends with many people, and as a thank you, she invited everyone round for a German meal (red cabbage, goulash, dumplings). It was pretty much the same crowd as at Christmas.

The Azzurra flats are all lovely. Most of them have full views of the sea and quite a few have large roof terraces (as did Tina’s). Consequently, we were mostly sitting up on the outside terrace. You need a jumper this time of year, but it’s still lovely.  I’ll probably put a photo up of the moon over the sea for this blog – that’s the view from Tina’s roof terrace.

I’m not actually that keen on German food, even though I’ve lived there in the past. However, Tina’s food was great. The red cabbage was surprisingly nice and the goulash was wonderful. Apparently, the dumplings needed a special kind of potato that you can’t get over here. That’s always the problem (and joy) here – nothing is ever quite the same. Anyway, they went a bit wrong, but I still ate some.

She bought a lot of beer (I thought that was very German!), but unusually it seemed that everyone wanted to drink a spirit with coke. I’d brought rum with me because I didn’t have any wine at home, plus a couple of cans of diet coke, and it turned out to be quite popular. I think another person brought vodka and that was also chosen by a fair few people.

The next day, my meal was in El Andalous, so that’s like visiting someone in student halls (which seems like another life now). There, I had a wonderful Lebanese cottage pie equivalent with cauliflower cheese without the cheese (I am so awkward to cook for). And some broccoli. It was all wonderful. I somehow drank a bit too much, so didn’t swim the following day.

So, that was my run up to the new year. To see the new year in, I got myself chicken and chips from our local fried chicken place, ate the chocolate cake my brother sent me for Christmas, and pigged out in front of the television with some vodka and coke (since now I no longer have any rum either). It was actually a lovely evening.

My first five hours of 2021, however, were not the best as I had diarrhea. I think it must have been the chicken (I couldn’t think of eating chicken the next day, but my veal was most acceptable). I was up all night until about 5am, but after that was better. A new year’s swim was even possible.

Anyway, I’m enjoying going round saying that I started off 2021 by getting rid of all the crap!

Let’s hope that’s portentous for this coming year! Wishing you all a healthy and happy year ahead.