An Der Schönen Blauen Donau

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

It is traditional in the Er Indoors and Me household to watch the New Year's Concert from Vienna every year.

This started in the mid-2000's when BBC2 had it on, and I reached for the remote to change the channel.

ER INDOORS: Er... You could leave it on if you like...
ME: (Surprised) Do you like this?
ER INDOORS: ...maybe. (Pause). Do you?
ME: ...maybe.

Yes, it turns out we both love it. We like to look at the Lipizzaner Horses and to bounce along to the polkas, to people-watch the audience, to laugh at the goofy expressions from the excitable conductors, to try and spot Julie Andrews in the audience and to play air-violin for the particularly vigorous parts. Er Indoors always mocks the ballet dancers and then... and then...

The lull... and then the first little rrrrrrrrrrrm from the string section and EVERYONE APPLAUDS before the conductor and orchestra wishes us all, "Frohes Neujahr".

And THEN they do The Blue Danube. The BBC announcer informs us that 2017 was the 150th anniversary of its composition and that Johann Strauss was paid the grand amount of "one ducat" for it. It is always followed by the the Radetzky March and everyone claps along, including us. There might be singing. And then it is all over for another year.

It may be the 3rd of January. And we may be watching last year's concert because we no longer have the BBC. But it doesn't matter. Tradition is tradition. And it really is a lovely, happy way to start a year.

S.

p.s. Er Indoors texted Feefs to tell her we were watching this. She got back a reply, "OMG totes nerd alert". And this from someone who owns "Family Feud: Star Wars Edition". And uses the word "totes".