Jane Lovering: Let’s all have something to look forward to

January is such an odd month though, isn’t it? Here we are, staring down the barrel of a shiny new year, with the expense and over-stimulation of Christmas receding into the distance in a halo of tinsel and leaving behind only the smell of overdone mince pies, and there’s a general air of what I like to call “phthur” around.

“Phthur” – the state of not being able to get excited about anything much.

I suppose our adrenal glands have all been burned out by the effort of sustaining Christmas and we now can’t do much more than flap our hands feebly and worry about the weather forecast and the milk bill.

But, I’d suggest, that just as we are advised that children need stretches of boredom in order to let their brains freewheel and learn how to entertain themselves, we adults need January in order to appreciate the rest of the year.

After all, once we get through this, then it’s nearly spring, then we’ve got the Easter break to look forward to. Once Easter is out of the way it’s May, with the attendant bank holidays, then it’s summer, and once we get through to September we can start looking forward to Christmas again!

But, January first. The month where every day is mostly built of dark and mud. A month of wearing so many clothes that you can’t bend your arms, losing track of your toes and wondering if anyone has yet invented the hot water bottle suit. What we need is an incentive to get through, something so that we can say “January may be grim, but at least it’s got...”

All right, the Scots have got Burns Night, and some people will have birthdays or other celebrations, but for those of us for whom January is 98 per cent phthur, with a 2 per cent window for snowdrops or a nice smell, I propose that we turn, let’s say the 28th, into Looking Forward Day.

It could be a national day of festivity, where everyone has to think of at least one thing to look forward to in the coming year. It may help if there’s some kind of chocolate incentive, in the form of decorations to be hung from high points in the house. And, on this day, every year, we will gather to raise anticipation levels for the rest of the year. And eat chocolate, which never goes amiss. We’ll celebrate everything we have and jolly well look forward to the end of winter and all the excitement of the rest of the year, whilst counting our blessings.

Looking Forward Day – mark it on your calendars!

Jane Lovering is an award winning romantic comedy writer published by Choc Lit.