19 January 2017

January Blues

A few suggestions

by Lynda Goetz

Today, Wednesday, has been a beautiful day down here in the West Country, cold, but not too cold, beautiful blue skies and sunshine all day until the early winter sunset cast a pink glow over the few scattered clouds – presaging, if the old saying* is to be believed, a similar day tomorrow. Yesterday and Monday (so-called Blue Monday*), however, were more typical of January and February days in England – grey, overcast with low cloud and drizzle. Generally this is not a good time to be in England. It can be totally depressing and not just if you suffer from SAD (Seasonally Affective Disorder, depression partly resulting from the lack of light and sunshine). This is not to my mind a time for a ‘dry January’ or punishing New Year’s Resolutions, so I make the following suggestions for cheering yourselves up.

Book a skiing holiday. It doesn’t matter if it is for January, February or March (although avoid half term and Easter holidays owing to the crowds and the expense), the main thing is it is something to look forward to.
If you are not into skiing, book a holiday in the sun. Places like Morocco are brilliant at this time of year, warm but not too hot and even have the advantage of being only a short haul flight away (although that can increase the risk of them being cancelled ‘in anticipation’ of bad weather; a very British problem which last occurred only 6 days ago when Heathrow cancelled around 80 flights because ‘wintery weather was expected’. Extraordinary, that.)
If money issues or work commitments rule out both of the first two suggestions, check out deals for hotel breaks in the UK. You could head north, where it is said they still have ‘proper’ winters at least part of the time or you could simply resolve not to move from the comfort of whatever sort of luxury you have chosen to indulge yourself in – be it a spa hotel with relaxing and pampering treatments or a gastro pub with a roaring log fire. (Try Trivago, Travelzoo or Hotels.com. The Telegraph is also running some luxury break offers currently).
None of the above working for you? Can I suggest you snuggle up on the sofa (alone or with company) and start watching endless episodes of something like Westworld or Vikings? These are bound to take you out of your humdrum workaday world of routine, relentless rain and drudgery and into an alternative reality where life is cheap, death is certain, (many times over in the former if you are an android and very violently in the latter), you learn that the rain in Scandinavia appeared to be heavy and frequent and you might even feel really grateful for the present-day NHS with all its evident failings. Binge-watching like this gives you something to look forward to for countless evenings – you can even be really self-indulgent and escape into two or three episodes back-to-back.
Start a new book. If you are near a high street, have a browse round your local bookshop or Waterstones. This is far more fun than choosing books online. You can touch them and open them properly and read bits from the middle, not just the beginning. The choice is vast – from history through biographies to novels and glossy gardening or cookery books. Whatever your choices, and I would certainly recommend you buy more than one, (even half a dozen will be cheaper than any holiday, of course) you will surely leave with a sense of promise and anticipation.
If you have a garden, or even a few tubs on the terrace or balcony, start planning your summer displays. Bulb, seed and plant catalogues are a colourful joy to look through at this time of year – even if you know that your plants will never look as opulent as the ones featured (assuming, that is, they escape the attentions of the neighbour’s cats, your dog, the squirrels, mice, rabbits and deer all likely to ravage them if they are in the vicinity). Should you not have the advantage of outdoor space, buy plants or flowers for now for indoors. They are remarkably cheering.
Apart from books, boxed sets or Kindle or Amazon fire sticks, buy yourself a large present. Yes, I know you received lots of lovely things you never thought you needed or wanted from your family at Christmas, or indeed received, rather boringly, exactly what you asked for, but maybe not those new curtains for your bedroom you have been promising yourself for ages or the new chest of drawers to replace the white, chipped chipboard one you have been meaning to replace for the last few years. Materialism is, of course, not a good thing, but just sometimes… just sometimes it has the edge, even if only temporarily over ‘Mindfulness’ or ‘Thankfulness’ or ‘Gratefulness’ or whatever the psychologists or CBT therapists choose to call it.
Finish and send off your 2015-16 Tax Return. It is amazing what a cheering and lightening effect this can have – even on the dreariest of days.
Take some exercise. By that I do not mean join one of those cheerless gyms where your own inadequacies seem highlighted by the silent, bench-pressing, weight-lifting, cycling, rowing grim-faced thirty-somethings around you, but perhaps join a class; one that you’ll enjoy (there are so many different types these days from Yoga and Pilates to CrossFit and BodyPump) or simply leave the umbrella behind, lift your face up to the sky and walk, reminding yourself that rain is good for your complexion.
Finally remind yourself of Robert Browning’s poem ‘Home Thoughts from Abroad’ and remember that January and February do not last for ever… Now, April that is a time to be in England.

*Red sky at night shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.

* ’Blue Monday’ – a term coined in 2005 by Dr Cliff Arnall, formerly of Cardiff University, who came up with a light-hearted formula for predicting the gloomiest day of the year, which he concluded was the third Monday in January.

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