January weather

January weather

Monday 21st January is 2013’s Blue Monday, apparently the most depressing day of the year. It falls on the Monday of the last full week in January and is an example of pseudoscience at work. (There’s a fascinating and very informative post about pseudoscience here.)  There’s no actual scientific basis for this claim about Blue Monday. It all began, like Santa’s red suit, as a result of advertising. A company called Sky Travel introduced the idea, no doubt hoping that people would be encouraged to book themselves a nice summer holiday to provide something to look forward to at this demoralising time of year.

So, should we be depressed in late January? Well, the weather’s generally at its worst in the northern hemisphere, there aren’t any public holidays coming up for a while and Christmas is rapidly becoming a distant memory. But on the brighter side, the days are getting longer, the sales are on, it’s about the time you can start forgetting about your overenthusiastic new year’s resolutions without feeling guilty, and the dodgy weather gives you the excuse to be lazy in front of the fire now and again.

See, it’s not all bad. In particular, here in Creuse this is the time of year when there will be days off school due to too much snow on the road so that’s positively brilliant for most kids. Much as Rors enjoys collège, there’s a real sense of honour satisfied when forced to miss a day because of the wintry conditions. He may well get a day off this week, the way things are shaping up.

Other than having a day off school, how else can you cheer yourself up? Well, here are 101 suggestions so I’m sure you’ll find something there that will bring a smile back to your face.

Failing those, you could always buy my book, Heads Above Water, to read! 😉