The party

I have eleven ten minutes before switching off the computers at 9pm (well, I might allow myself a small amount of leeway) in which to write about this year's New Year's Eve festivities.

The party was very enjoyable, low-keyed and friendly, almost like "family" but without the generational dynamics and barely-repressed hostility. Based on this gathering, the state of matrimony is in very poor shape in Germany: all but two of us were singles, and the only active pair of the evening had met at Chirpy's birthday party that autumn - and both of them had children by previous marriages. (Actually that's not true, Chirpy's son and Best Friend's daughter, who joined us for the first dinner then disappeared, are "an item.")

We ate well and drank in moderation, danced like untamed gazelles (© P.G.Wodehouse) to the hits of our youth (Chic, Sister Sledge, Hot Chocolate), then did it all again after midnight with a second dinner. I wound up washing dishes and talking about the state of the world at 4am with another non-sleeper, a fine and fitting start to a new year (Chirpy and the other guests having retired).

2006 began with a leisurely breakfast and a long walk by the river, in the shadow of the old city walls.

Chirpy's tale is quite sad, she was at the seminar to come to terms with being deserted by her husband after 28 years together. Say that again, readers: twenty-eight years. They were high-school sweethearts, he fell into a midlife crisis and feared that he would miss out on something or other by remaining with her.

The question on your lips and mine is, of course: "Flower or potato?" I don't know, at this early stage of sprouting it's neither one thing nor the other. I am trying not to think about this but simply to accept it and live it and see what happens.

Today's Song On Infinite Repeat is Uncertain Smile by The The, from their 1983 album Soul Mining; just for the sake of Jools Holland's marvellous piano solo, the final 3'30" of a six-minute song.

And now it's 23:01, and I shall kick my own foolish butt to bed.

Still awake

I'm going through a phase of sleep problems. Since blogging about being awake a week ago, I've woken up much too early twice, and now can't get to sleep at all. It's not visions of sugar plums that are dancing in my head, but of unpaid bills and future appointments and so-much-to-do-so-little-time and all the rest of that. There is a great deal of work that I could and should be doing, and must do quite soon, but I just can't be bothered. Five hours is about the limit of my concentration these days, after that I start drifting off-topic.

I stood at the window for a while now, counting the other apartments where the lights were on (one) and thought how pleasant the night air was: clear, fresh, a light breeze smelling of trees and damp earth. I haven't even been for a good walk in weeks, I really just can't be bothered about anything.

Dinner last night was at the last-minute invitation of an old friend whom we shall call Princess, an artist who was one of the first people I met in Stuttgart. An excellent four-course meal with good wine and fine conversation. (Paté and honeydew melon slices, an avocado and rucola salad (unusual combination but it worked quite well), tuna steaks with potatoes done in a way I'd never seen before: cut into thin slices and laid out overlapping each other like a fallen-over row of dominoes, drizzled with thyme and olive oil and roasted in the oven; and for desert mascarpone with fresh strawberries and blueberries.) Princess has mellowed over the years, I believe "ageing gracefully" is the technical term for it: confident, relaxed, non-obsessive, willing to accept the occasional blemish. She could never have managed a dinner like this when we first met. (I still couldn't manage it.)

Among the guests were my former colleague Ageing Yuppie and a book designer who probably won't figure in these pages again so she doesn't need a name. She was a puzzlement to me, because we should have met ages ago: she is friends with Princess whom I see regularly and Yuppie's business partner whom I see irregularly, she designed and produced Famous Sculptor's previous catalogue, and she worked for years in a design studio in Berlin which I visited a few times. Given all of that social and geographical overlap, how can we not have met? A mystery.