All in the balance

I'm finding this Confined Cocktails post quite hard to write. What's the tone, today? 

Is it jolly and defiant? We've made it to Christmas, well done us, 2020 couldn't keep us down!

Certainly it is jolly. I've spent the afternoon sobbing at the marvellously sentimental and creative Old Vic version of A Christmas Carol, which is perfect for making charitable donations and vowing to keep Christmas however you may. Strictly starts at 6pm, so long as the press conference of doom doesn't overrun, and either way, I plan to be cocktailing fairly unconfined from about 5.30 onwards. This feels like another evening when we need togetherness. And tinsel. And fairy lights. And something to cheer about.

This sort of deal. I did eventually find the passion fruit I had misplaced last weekend so this is an Avenue cocktail. I shall be having another tonight. Probably also another mince pie tbh.

Is a more realistic tone constrained and scared, though? Probably. Emergency additional restrictions coming in now feels fairly apocalyptic - again. I know it's not the whole country, but it does suggest there's a further very bad twist in the tale of this wretched virus. This rollercoaster year goes on and on and up and down and round. I think we're all knackered. The good news is that most of us now get a couple of weeks of less work, if not no work, and a bit of time to catch our breath. The bad news is, it might all be a bit lonely. 

But this is our FORTIETH #ConfinedCocktails. Which means there are people out there who feel the need for company and a small cheer in a troubling world, and who have kept on keeping up each others' spirits (and, well, liver damage) for month upon month of getting through this awful year. I call that tidings of comfort and joy.

Whatever happens next Saturday as Boxing Day may have its own rhythms that don't allow for general twitter getting together, I hope some of you/us will raise a glass to each other and all of us when it seems apt. 

And I will definitely be around for a New Year's Eve #ConfinedCocktails (open to starting this at whatever time - 7pm drinks of water and we all go to bed early because we need it, or 11.30pm and we stay up to wave a slightly threatening hello to 2021: You'd Better Be Better Than 2020, Mate. Both, even?). And then, on we go, every Saturday that we're needed.

Meanwhile, all the sparkles we can muster. May all your snackage be tasty, may all your drink choices be pleasing, and may we all get through this, as we have done so far.

Random cheering photos because why not at this point?

Me in a "unicorn" face mask that makes me look like a robot (tinsel-draped fan in background)

Brian Blessed as Christmas Present (not at the Old Vic): impossible to constrain on a small screen

Just one day's post of joyful things, most of them from you lot. Thank you all so much for reaching out.