Carol’s Column

New Year's Eve

Suddenly it's the end of the year. Like a pimple at the end of a nose it crept up and erupted and before I could catch my breath it's almost 1999 which is being totally eclipsed by the millennium - the year 2000. Have you noticed? It's as if New Year's Eve 1998 doesn't exist. All people talk about is the end of next year.

"So what are you doing, where are you going, what odd, peculiar and inventive have you planned to celebrate the millennium?"

To tell the truth, nobody listens when you try to answer. They're too busy telling you how they're going to be partying on a cruise ship in the middle of the Bosphorus, on an island in the Caribbean, in Bronhorstspruit, in the Okavango, in Paris, on top of Kilimanjaro, in the jungles of Borneo, in Hillbrow, on an ice-cutter in the Antarctic.

But tomorrow night? It's almost a non-starter. I've never known a New Year to be ushered in in such a disinterested way. "So what are you doing for the New Year?" I said to my good friend Betty.

"Going trout fishing," she answered. "Trout fishing? Do you know which end to hold the rod? For that matter, have you ever seen a trout?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course I've seen a trout. Grilled trout, trout in almond sauce, trout in butter and lemon. I'm an expert on trout." "A trout in the water? A swimming trout?" "That's a detail," she muttered. "A trout's a trout."

I keep thinking of New Years past. The best one ever in Botswana with our trusty four-by four stuck in three metres of mud surrounded by elephants and lion and we knew we were the luckiest people in the world.

Most Lazar New Years seem to have been spent in a motor car driving to and from family holidays. And these journeys, too, were memorable. Such as when Jamie got locked in the garage toilet at Bloemfontein and we only noticed him missing somewhere round about Brandfort, so it was New Year's Eve in Bloem and New Year's day in Brandfort.

So often we'd watch the dawning of a New Year from the side of the road beside the entrails of our various cars spewed over the road due to severe misfunctioning.

Perhaps our most legendary New Year breakdown happened when we travelled with friends in convoy to the game parks of Botswana and Zimbabwe. We never ever did see those parks but we did spend four days camped along the Maun Francistown main road (in the days when it was still gravel), both four-by-fours having died within 100 metres of each other, both with crippled gear boxes. We ushered that New Year in by partying with the locals. They fed us goat-milk cheese, mopani worms and beer while we shared our wors, baked beans and beers and waited for spare parts which never came.

"Let's do something exciting for New Year's Eve this year," I said to my husband. "Great," he said, his eyes glued to the cricket on TV. "I'll give you a choice," I said eagerly. "We can see the New Year come in from the top of Table Mountain, take a midnight ferry to Robben island, party at the Waterfront, climb Signal Hill and watch the sun rise, have a picnic on the beach at Boulders with the penguins, do a New Year prowl around the jazz clubs or go to bed."

"Yes, that's it! Bed!" he yelled. Perchance to sleep? Definitely. Thank heavens. I wish you a restful New Year too.

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