I’m fortunate to live in one of the most picturesque locations in the UK known for its beautiful scenery but I’m not getting it today. The Cotswolds hills I can normally see out of my office window are shrouded in rolling (and depressing) grey mist. A perfect example of a first world problem yes, but its also a perfect analogy of that post-Christmas slump most of us feel. Make no bones about it, January is grey. A whole fifty plus shades of it.
No point dwelling on it. Unless we can disappear for a month to Barbados and our name is Simon Cowell (for the record, mine is not) we just have to deal with it as best we can. By my own admission, I’m a fine one to talk: I normally spend the whole month whinging about the greyness and wishing my life away until the summer. I’m the world’s worst procrastinator too. So this year I’ve decided to embrace the grey and be a bit more positive by (cue drum roll) . . . trying something new.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to now start flinging back the bedroom curtains every morning and start passionately belting out ‘The Hills Are Alive’ to my poor unsuspecting neighbours. I will never fall in love with January as I do with July, even when its chucking down tabbies and terriers during Wimbledon fortnight. I can’t be doing with winter now or ever. Its just that I’m going to try and be a bit more constructive: call it a distraction if you will.
So I’m buying a road bike. To hell with it. I’ll carry on regardless in spite of the dull dampness that haunts us this time of year. Time to get out there, soldier on and get those feel-good hormones pumping once again. I’ll wave at the rain and shiver against the cold. But before I lapse into any self-congratulatory smugness and ‘gloat post’ on Facebook, I know that it’ll be anything but a warm breeze. Exercise is as much an alien to me these days as I suspect Trump would be to a WI meet, and I doubt very much I’ll greet it like a long-lost friend once I’m on that saddle, BUT – as I write I relish the prospect of escaping my own mind fog and cycling through the real kind. Before I know it, ‘more balls please’ will surely be the BBC’s seasonal motto once again.
Its OK though, I haven’t completely lost my marbles. Wine is still very much on the calendar for January. Never mind dry January – on that score, it will always be a rather wet one!
Oh and guess what? The hills are now visible, temporarily at least, gifting a brief respite from the rolling grey mist. I hadn’t even noticed.
Claire Brown
PR Account Director