Are you one of those people who is straight out of the blocks on the first working day of the year, either Friday 2 January or Monday 5 January depending on your schedule? Or are you someone like me who likes to tip toe gently into the working year, particularly if there is snow and ice on the ground and on cars and trains outside?
Some years, I think the jollity of Christmas comes too early in the winter weather schedule giving us all something to get excited about. There then follows a very long January and a mercifully short February with their frequently freezing weather. Remember the Beast from the East in 2018? (In Salisbury, it coincided with the first Novichok incident.) That was in mid-March.
So, we have plenty of winter to come and I think January is a time for hunkering down, trying to stay warm and giving ourselves reasons to be cheerful.
I started back at work on Monday 5 January after a two-week break over the festive season and faced a hectic week. Winchester on Monday; Reading on Tuesday; London on Wednesday evening and Thursday; back to Winchester again briefly on Friday.
As things panned out, a smattering of snow and ice changed my plans. On Monday, I left Winchester early to drive back in the tiny lunchtime thaw before the sun was again so low that I couldn’t see the road ahead. On Tuesday, my train to Basingstoke where I had to change for Reading was first delayed then cancelled. I got as far as Salisbury station, had a coffee, waited for 20 minutes or so, realised I would have to hang around at Amazingstoke for the connection and face a potentially difficult journey back later that day. I called it quits and decided to work from home.
I’m trying to be kind to myself and to others, travelling when it’s sensible, taking time over work, rather than rushing from one thing to the next. Safeguarding energy (ie still eating the Christmas cake which will last me all month).
I do have new year’s resolutions, chief among them training to run a marathon in Newport, Wales on 19 April. I hope I can do it and I hope I can get some long training runs in, when it’s not too icy to be out.
I started the new year full of hopes for a better future. Then there were the events in Venezuela and everything seemed to be going TU again. It may be January nicotine withdrawal, but I am losing patience with Prime Minister Starmer. What would Blair say in this situation, I find myself thinking. Hey ho. I hope you have some hopes and aspirations for the year ahead. I’ll be here monthly, as usual.
In other news
This was a thoughtful and interesting reflection from The Guardian’s John Harris, about people using screens less in 2025 in favour of real-life experiences.
In an unrelated story: “The BBC is not a menace to the functioning of democracy. But he [Trump] is.” Not my words, but the words of The Guardian with its view published last month of Trump’s “fantastical” request for £10bn in damages from the BBC. The BBC has apologised for a misleading edit to a Trump speech in an edition of Panorama, but is resisting Trump’s call for damages.
The government should be far more supportive of the Corporation than it is currently being.
This made me smile and think, not least from the fantastic headline: “I’m not sure a bakery needs a branded condom.” Tote bags, like band and slogan t-shirts before them, have become and perhaps always were performative. That doesn’t stop me using my Daunt Bookshop tote bag when my younger daughter isn’t using it… or ordering merch for the Warm Welcome Campaign!
That’s it for this month. Stay warm!
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