The Year-End Roundup - 10 Favourite Moments Of 2007

It's been a packed year: a year packed with more bad than good, probably; but at the year's close, I feel a need to be positive in my reflections - so here are 10 of the memories from this year that bring the warmest glow to my heart.

1) 'Liberating' some bicycle-sledges for a brisk circuit of the nearby frozen lakes in the wee small hours of New Year's morning.

2) Being snowed on - late in the season, at the beginning of March - coming home from the 'after-party' of the infamous Bob Marley Party at my pad..... and receiving a very sweet (though disappointingly non-sexual!) goodnight kiss from one of my great failed crushes of the year.

3) Discovering the Pool Bar - my new 'second home' this year.

4) Being introduced to the Jianghu courtyard bar - one of the great finds of the year, and scene of many, many happy evenings since.

5) Staying up all night with best drinking buddy, The Choirboy, on the eve of the Mayday holiday..... drinking cheap beers at a sidewalk cafe.... that eventually converted into a breakfast bar.

6) Attending an awesomely good gig by my favourite local musician, Xiao He, out at a great new performance space in the Dashanzi art district.

7) The first visit to this blog of the lovely-and-talented Moonrat, most interesting of my new blogfriends and commenters (lured to this site by a photograph taken from a toilet - she has still not explained how this came to be!!).

8) A birthday treat for my visiting friend (and occasional commenter), Caren, along with her fiancé and a few others of my friends - pigging out on Yunnan food under an open summer sky, in a charming courtyard restaurant near my apartment.

9) Walking on the beach at Portobello in a dazzling dawn - after an all-night session of drinking, theatre-going, and more drinking in Edinburgh this August.... with my delightful new friend 'WeasleyBurrow'.

10) And finally....... the funniest line I've heard all year: my lovely lady friend, The Life Coach, told me recently that she once dumped a man "because he would keep ordering the chicken". That just cracked me up! (And after hearing the full story, I could quite understand her objection: unimaginative eating choices are such a passion-killer.)

There you have it, readers - that was my year. Not such a bad one, after all.

Let's hope that 2008 will have many more such moments for all of us.

[This, by the way, was Froogville's 750th post. Gasp of amazement! It seems No. 1,000 could be upon us before we know it.....]