So, it's 11.40pm, and the party is going great .. then someone suggests we take the chinese lanterns up the hill to the park to set them off at midnight. It took a few minutes for the idea to spread, and then a few more minutes for everyone to hurriedly find coats, boots, bottles of champagne ..
.. we set off up the hill .. and up the hill .. and got to the park gates. They were locked. So we walked down another (even steeper) hill, and then back up another hill, to another gate, which was open. (We paused at the actual moment of midnight to hug, and watch all the fireworks being let off across the valley)
We got to the chosen spot .. looking over a wall with a drop down over gardens and rooftops to the valley below .. to discover that it was very exposed, and really windy! We paused to crack open the champagne bottles, and sing Auld Lang Syne .. then set to trying to get the lanterns lit. After a long time, the first one to be lit blew out of the hands of the person holding it, and plummeted straight into a tree below the wall!
(We eventually gave up on lighting the lanterns on the hill, and went back to the garden, where we finally mastered the technique and sent one soaring up in to the sky!)
