What's everyone doing for Hogmanay?

[Lachlan09]

For this Manay of the Hogs, we’ll be doing what’s become a sort of tradition over the last 3 years here in Muscat, Oman.

We’re having a house-party for neighbours, friends and anyone they bring along or just appears ! It’ll be mainly Filipinos, a few Indians/Pakistanis, some Arabs, as my wife invites her various pals and their (usually expat Westerner) husbands, plus her Filipino bowling league friends plus various assorted gay Filipinos. Most British and Westerners go back to their countries at New Year, so there won’t be so many from my side ! But I know the Filipinas’ husbands etc. Our neighbours are Arabs, but the cosmopolitan type. Just in case, we’ll make sure pork is off-menu or else isolated and identified (A Filipino without pork is like a day without sunshine !).

There will be lots of food, Filipino food will be there of course (such as lumpiang Shanghai and perhaps lumpiang sariwa, pansit, mechado, afritada, kare-kare, adobo, manok, kilaw, perhaps paella, leche flan etc) but my teenage son wants to cook some Italian and Spanish style food which he’ll organize (like pizza, calzone, lasagne and tapas – tortilla, chorizo in red wine, mushrooms in garlic etc) and I want to make Indonesian festive dishes (Nasi kuning tumpeng, sate campur, gado-gado, marbled eggs, rempeh-rempeh, rendang daging, perkedel jagung etc).

Lots of beer, lots of B-52 cocktails, lots of tequila etc - soft drinks too. Lots of dancing, lots of karaoke ! I’ve taken leave so not going back to work till 3rd January to allow a full recovery !

Hmmm - I hope they turn up !

[Jimmy]

Arlen, we should be spending Hogmanay in local pub in Bowling beside Dumbarton, last year it had been closed down so we opted for a Caledonian 3 day trip to stay in the Gairloch hotel in Gairloch, Wester Ross, it cost a fortune at that time for the 3 days and the hotel was frozen and the food rubbish, it was the first time that I had used Caledonian Travel and probably will never use them again.
So looking forward to hogmanay in the local