Happy New Year.......sort of!!

You'll miss it once it's gone

After all that excitement and the lengthy build up, Christmas has been and gone for another year and truth be told, it wasn’t that different or any better than the previous ten was it? You quite enjoyed the book your sister bought you and it was really nice looking forward to watching that new DVD.  Now, the book is back on the shelf with all the others and the film was okay but not much to write home about. You see, it’s all about unrealistic expectations which then make the inevitable disappointment that much harder to manage. Once you’ve taken the Christmas tree down doesn’t the front room look enormous and bare?  Now think about those two words for a quick second - enormous and bare - don’t they sum up just perfectly the huge undertaking that is every New Year.

Maybe I’m in a minority of one, but for me the thought of the coming twelve months with not a clue what to expect scares me witless, it’s so much more comforting to imagine the year just passed, for better or worse, than the unknown which is just around the corner. I kind of liken the whole thing to saying grace; “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.” Surely, any right minded person would rather say, “For what we have just received etc...............” To try and give that last remark some context, imagine if you will, the missus expecting you to be grateful beforehand when she’s about to serve you, say, a plate of dog food. I don’t know, perhaps it’s just me.

Revenge will be sweet

The problem with January is that all too often it starts with the hangover from hell on the first morning of the month and thereafter the mental hard work keeps on coming, or so it seems. The transition from December, via a drunken and, if you’re lucky, debauched New Years Eve, invariably involves a lengthy lie-in and a couple of paracetamol. For some, this might even be the high point of New Years Day because, as things slowly come into steadily sharper focus, usually by about mid-afternoon, the stark realisation that all the best stuff is months off hits home. More immediate is the nag you can’t shake off that pay day is about as far away as the moon and that between now and then, the credit card you’ve recently kicked the arse out of is going to need paying.

Just another night

For some, December sliding gracefully into the history books is the perfect cut off point to sling out some old and set about a few new habits with renewed zeal; these kinds of “cleansing” thought processes almost always manifest themselves in the need to make New Year’s Resolutions. At this point all the usual suspects line up for their identity parade – smoking, the gymnasium, a diet, drinking less and eating healthier. To be perfectly honest, and apologies in advanced for sounding cynical, but January the first really is no better a day to begin all over again than the first of June, after all May has thirty one days too. Generally speaking, within a few days tobacco will have defeated even the strongest of resolves and the pub will be the only place left to assuage that crushing guilt.

Aaahhh!!

Yup, it’s a funny old time of year. Television for example, gets back to boring normality with only the subliminal messages of the craftily scheduled holiday adverts to interest you and the only things left in the Quality Street tin are those horrible round toffees in the shiny yellow wrapper. The first big hurdle to try and negotiate is the transition from those gloomy winter evenings when it gets dark at five o’clock to the warmer and lighter spring time. That though is still a few weeks away yet, but before you get trampled underfoot in the stampede to the doctors for an anti-depressant prescription, take a look at your calendar. Surely, January’s beautiful photograph of a robin in a snowy garden will lift your spirits. 

Having come back down to earth with a resounding bump after Christmas, reality bites and for some, as I’ve previously mentioned, it comes quite hard. There’s always somebody worse off though; how would you like to be a shop assistant  trying to combine the chaos of the January sales with those thousands of customers trying exchange their crimbo pullover - usually without a receipt - because it’s in the wrong colour or size? Speaking of the shops, in the land where people cook in the garden, have you noticed that Easter eggs don’t appear in Spanish stores by early February like they do in the UK? This, for me, is one of various different reasons why living where we do the sometimes onerous task of coping with the New Year seems so much easier. I’ll come back to that presently.

Who ate all the pies ?

Anyway, back to those New Year Resolutions for which to me the timing seems to me to be all wrong. If you’re already at a bit of a low ebb, it’s illogical, in my humble opinion, to deliberately make things worse by depriving yourself of the greatest comforts. The solution therefore is simple, do the opposite. Instead of spending less time on the internet, use facebook or twitter even more. Forget the diet and get a few pies down you. Use the time you would have spent at the gym that you probably can’t really afford anyway to stay in bed longer. Obviously, it then makes perfect sense to use some of the cash you’ve not wasted getting hot and sticky at the health club on hefting pints at the pub. It’s a form of exercise, isn’t it? Give these suggestions a whirl and I guarantee you’ll soon feel loads better.

I couldn’t really end these words without a brief mention of the weather, which, because it hasn’t snowed on the coastal Costa Blanca since about 1714, makes Spain a viable option for those opening months of the year. Those picturesque villages high up in the mountains you can see in the distance look absolutely exquisite after the occasional winter snow flurries and it doesn’t half feel cooler inland than the seaside. Compare and contrast though places like say, Alcoy or Alguena to the English north east or Scotland, where, a typical light dusting invariably means the local white van men can't find their vehicles for a fortnight. If I'm going to need to worry a bit about paying off my flexible friend after Christmas, I'd much rather do it in Elche than Edinburgh.  

Happy New Year

If you need me any time after Big Ben has been televised live striking twelve, I'll be in the pub. Until March.  Happy New Year.