If you were expecting a blog reminiscing over the past 12 months, you’re in for a disappointment. It may be New Year’s Eve, but I am treating it like any other night and just blogging about random bollocks which has occurred in my life recently. Oh, and before you say, yes I am aware how sad it is to be blogging on New Year’s Eve, although if you haven’t realised that after almost a decade of reading this blog, there’s something wrong with you.

This morning I made a delightful trip to the opticians. Always a pleasure. I’ll rank it up with visiting the dentist for a triple tooth extraction, attending a funeral or a Saturday afternoon at Old Trafford. Not only did I have to have a contact lens check, but to add to my pain, an eye test. These worry me, as anyone else with shit eyes will testify. “Do the letters look clearer with this lens, or this?” and “Do the numbers look brighter in the red or the green?” I worry that if I answer incorrectly they’ll diagnose some terrible eye condition or leprosy. I just guess and hope for the best, as most of the time it looks the same. They then offered me some supposedly free glasses. I am very cynical of anything branded “free”, that is because nothing in life is free. I expected to be forced to pay for tinted lenses or go-faster stripes. It turned out I didn’t have to pay any extra costs, well I did, I chose to pay a fiver to get the things delivered to my house, to save me another God-forsaken trip into Bath city centre. They wanted me to come back for a fitting. As I haven’t taken them up on this offer, prepare to run if you see me behind the wheel of a car, squinting from a pair of poorly-fitted spectacles.

The trip to the eye dentist was followed by a trek around town. It was New Year’s Eve, but still technically a working day. Pity for me, most of Bath had the same idea to book the identical week off work. It was busy. My God it was busy. There was nearly a collision in Pound Land when I stepped out in front of a woman next to the pic-and-mix. She apologised, even though it was probably my fault. I told her not to worry. Make her feel guilty.

After shopping, we went to Pizza Express on the way back to the car park to pick up a takeaway. We promptly left Pizza Express without takeaway as I was a tit. I thought I had put a £20 gift card for the Italian restaurant in my wallet. Instead I had taken the holder for the gift card. Annoyed and pizza-less, we went to Schwartz Bros and bought a couple of burgers. Even that was a drama. The door was so heavy I thought they had locked it. Using all my strength, I kicked it in, like a crazed drunk, where I politely asked for a BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger before giving the kind gentlemen the money.

The drama of town was almost over. Almost. We got to Claire’s car, only to see the car in the adjacent bay had left its door open, preventing me getting into my seat. Cursing the inconsiderate driver, I slammed it shut. As we drive away, we thought that the car may in fact have been broken into. Oh well…

It was a thoroughly stressful day, so I unwound with a cup of coffee from my Magimax machine – a toy I bought myself post-Christmas. Along with my iPad, it is my favourite gadget of all time. The coffee is amazing. Given the chance, I would drink it until I either exploded or bounced off the walls. Whatever came first.

Happy New Year.