Thursday 31 December

New Year's Eve, which, as customary in Holland, is punctuated by a rising crescendo of the crackling of fireworks. Legally, you are only allowed to let off fireworks between 6pm and 2am after midnight - but quite a few folks disregard that limitation. Our last walk of the year took us through the woods for about 3 miles. Last light of the year faded around 5pm, and some 7 hours later, some £50m worth of fireworks went up in smoke across the Netherlands when 2015 left us.