Just in the door, my Skype rang. It was Fifi from Ibiza. “Everyone’s gone home” she said, “The whole family. The temperature’s dropped and the campsite’s finally calming down.”
I relayed how I’d just been sitting on a bench in the park with a hot cup of tea for company as the smoky smell of autumn drifted towards me, leaves on the ground around my stillness; serving as a carpet to crunch through on the way home.
“I crave nature these days” I said.
“You’re not the only one. Practically every guest I’ve had a conversation with this season has told me of their yearning for countryside, greenness and simplicity in life” Fifi replied.
Later that evening I bounded up the steps of my choir’s rehearsal venue, literally grinning with glee in anticipation.
As with the best holidays, the blues follow: They’re inescapable. And so it was for Stevie Wonder at Hyde Park. Such was the sublime soulfulness of Stevie and his band’s performance of ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ that the only way from such an up was an inevitable down today. But tonight when I listened to some of my recordings I felt the magic again.
I have to say I empathised with her dilemma – certainly at the beginning of the evening.
Cold glittering pavements met my snow boot shod feet as I left the house. This was a night for adventurers, curious people, resilient Londoners. With a temperature of – 2 degrees layers were required to brave weather so freezing that it hurt ears, numbed hands and nipped consistently at already chilled faces. But oh, the reward.
You know you’ve got a good New Year’s Eve on your hands when you sweep through two sets of grand curtains to be met by a kilt wearing Scot brandishing a saxophone. I say sweep, because that’s all you can do in a Tiffany-style 
Conversations with Strangers 