Happy New Year! (and the Status Kwoo)

Happy New Year everyone, I hope your hangovers are beginning to subside and you've managed a good night's sleep, for now it's back to the grind with the forced smile of the newly resolute.

I had a lovely new year up in Northampton with WillowZ, Grumpy, the littl'uns, Holly and Sian, and Jake the Three-legged Dog. The new house is gorgeous and, pleasingly, full of alcohol and sausage rolls.

We watched I Am Leg End (shush, I shall say it how I like), which I wasn't terribly impressed with. I've since watched it again and worked out that this was largely due to being distracted by Jake tapping about on the wooden floor (which drives Grumpy mad, but I find it most entertaining) and a 2-month old being cute on my lap. More on that later.

I have nominated myself De Facto Godmother to both small fries - Holly, however, loses points in the cute stakes for looking highly dubious at the idea, even when it was explained to her that all it means is an extra present on birthdays.

After making our way through an impressive amount of cocktails (well, various spirits topped up at random with whatever mixer was closest) and discovering that Black Russians taste like paint if made with lemonade, we made poor Grumpy go and get the PS3 from the other house, which was a half hour walk away. Sorry Grumps.

Anyone who was present on Yahoo the night WillowZ and I first got merry and exercised our vocal chords will know what a beautiful, harmonious sound it can be. They will also understand why my neighbours never spoke to me again. So letting us near Singstar after half a bottle of vodka was probably a mistake.

Really we just wanted to sing Hammertime, but it requires vocal gymnastics neither of us was up to. Holly tickled me enormously, when singing the High School Musical songs, by pronouncing status quo as 'status kwoo'. She thus regains her cute points.

We made our way through all the 90s songs and rock ballads until about 4 in the morning, when Grumpy had long disappeared to the safety of the bedroom with Sian, Holly was conked out on the sofa and WillowZ had slowly drifted off to sleep while still singing, such that her final note was more of a breathy scale.

And I wasn't even hungover!