It is New Year’s Eve, 2024. I’m in a long dress and heels, standing on a balcony above a gyrating Robbie Williams. It is 30 seconds to midnight. Everyone waits. Everyone looks at the Harbour Bridge for the countdown. We are in Sydney and I am at the Opera House with my husband. And then. The Sydney Harbour Bridge explodes into an arch of sequential light and noise and never-ending rockets and showers of dynamic sparkle and sparkling waterfalls of streaming colour showering on to the water. The black sky is illuminated by thousands of man-made stars. There is a communal gasp from the hundreds of us who are standing in what is possibly the most lauded public building of the 20th century, and one with staircases designed for women to walk up them in long frocks.
New Year’s Eve belongs to two places: Edinburgh and Sydney. This year, one was cancelled, but the other made up for it. Receiving the New Year from New Zealand and handing it on in fire and beauty is the job of Sydney Harbour. Twelve hours later, the baton is still going. I talk to my 93-year-old father, who is watching James Bond on TV and waiting for the sparkles to appear over Big Ben. It is a magical night.
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