It’s our second Christmas time at the farm. This year we couldn’t have family to visit, which was a shame. The photos below are of our New Year’s Day walk. It was minus 3 degrees Celsius in the afternoon so we went down to inspect the river and found long icicles at the edge, brrrr.
New Year’s Eve
There is a strange tradition from GSW’s country for New Year’s Eve (Ne’erday) where at 11:55pm on the 31st December, any tall dark handsome men in the house are chucked out into the cold to await the turn of the year. Once 00:00am has come, they knock at the door and are welcomed in bearing gifts signifying luck and plenty. This torture is termed “first footing” and the tall dark and handsome are the “first foots”. In our case, GS and GSS both being over 6 feet tall and handsome (two out of three ain’t bad) were ejected from the warm house into the bleak midwinter night to await midnight.
Out in the cold 
Here are the gifts 
I’m keeping the whisky
We hope you had a good New Year and wish you all the best for 2021. Goodbye to 2020.
The Geordie Smallholder 