So being at home sucks... I think most of us that have returned from such trips would agree!

So this year I had to stay at home with the folks at Christmas...  Not at 'home' in the Pink House in Sydney, where I'd really of loved to have been!!!  That sucked

So then in comes to New Years Eve...  You guessed it, Sydney is where I really, really wanted to be... But again, I wasn't...  Gutted...

...But!!!...

On the night, Crazy Steve (of Pink House Bingo fame) came thru with the plan to meet up in London at Wiley's place and to go and check out the fireworks on the River Thames at the London Eye!  Cool!

So I jumped in the car and headed up to London!

Let's have a
'Crazy' NYE
at the
London Eye

After having a lovely pasta meal as cooked by 'Wiley Oliver', we headed out to drive from South-East London where Wiley lives, up to park as near to the London Eye as possible...

Crazy as normal

We managed to park not far from The Embankment, so it wasn't that much of a walk..

Well we found somewhere to stand... there were bloody millions of people crammed down by the Thames, and no chance of getting anywhere near the London Eye, to we had the pleasure of the Charring Cross Rail Bridge in the foreground :-)
The Wheel, The London Eye was wonderfully lit up and they had a massive projector putting images up on the tower block on the left, which was cool.

Steve, Wiley and their mates Gary and Martha.
Getting the bubbly ready.
Note how spannered Wiley looks already! ...the camera never lies ;-)

So the Countdown begins...  10... 9...

Happy New Year!!!
Check out the vid of the countdown to midnight and 2006... and the start of the fireworks... followed by a special message for The Pink House & Tall Steve from Crazy Steve, with his faux-midget sidekick, Wiley, in the background!
(Ok, the fireworks sound like party-poppers going off on the vid, but they were rather good actually!)

Wow they're bright! Better fiddle with the new camera settings...

There's a couple of good ones in here somewhere...

They finished with about a billion mortars launched all at once and it was bloody good show...  next time I'll plonk myself smack-bang on the centreline of the London Eye to see the show they did off there better...

Happy New Year London

Posing with the gang... Crazy Steve doing his utmost to not look at the camera!

The blighter!

Got him!

The wonderful London Eye

It's actually not that big you know...

Steve & Wiley almost look like they're holding it up... NOT!

Giving it a turn and a poke

Capturing the passers-by with the slow-syncro flash

The humongous Christmas Tree by Covent Garden

We wondered around the centre of London for a couple of hours, not finding anywhere to get a beer, but managing to find almost every Fashion Sports Shoe shop in London!  So we decided to head home.

A blurry Big Ben crossing over the Thames

When we gat back to Wiley's we just sat around talking shite, watching big-wave surfing DVDs before crashing!

5:30am and kipping in Wiley's lounge with both Wiley and Crazy Steve...  Can't sleep... And both of them are snoring like steam trains!

In the end, it wasn't that Crazy (on the Crazy-Scale), but It was a good night tho!