Blues

Right "Depression" by Alessandra Martin (High School Collection)

January. Next Monday - January 22nd is calculated to be the most miserable day of this calendar year - at least in the northern hemisphere. This is the trough between Christmas festivities and the brightness of the coming Spring. The mornings are as dark as the evenings. It's cold. Rain lashes down. Dank dead leaves lie slowly rotting in windswept corners. At work, the corners of people's mouthes turn downwards. Some cough. Some speak grimly of post-Christmas diets - punishment for all that happy excess. Ian's friend Ben has just found out he is about to be made redundant with the closure of the "Musiczone" chain of shops. In our street, a water pipe burst - creating a little stream that ran down the hill for three long weeks till Yorkshire Water finally deigned to send their "task force". Now there's a big hole and mud and a "Men at Work" warning sign. Welcome to January.

At New Year many people make resolutions but by the third week of darkest January, many of those resolutions have been broken. The nicotine patches have been abandoned and drinkers "on the wagon" have generally returned to the bottle in moments of weakness or depression. Many people start to feel like failures because they couldn't keep up their resolve. And summer days - picnics, eating out, barbecues, beach holidays, coatless rambles, pub garden gatherings etc. all seem so far away. Everything can seem grey and colourless.

It's a time not to give in to the blues but to fight aginst those grey, gloomy feelings. Be kind to somebody. Help them out. Treat yourself or your family - perhaps to a nice meal out. Go for a vigorous walk because exercise is surely just about the best way of defeating those January blues.