Blues

So, after finally derailing the Christmas Express to Stressville we hit January 2013 with a bump.

January is a funny old month isn't it?   Every year its construed as a fresh start, the start of things to come, and has the shoulder of responsibility of how much luck you will have for the rest of the year.  If January is crap then the rest of the year is going to be crap also.

My January

I started the perfunctory January diet.  I now mainly eat cardboard and low fat cheese spread.  Lots of fruit, loads of water.  I treat myself to an alcoholic beverage every now and then, mainly Vodka and diet coke.  I am "in the zone".  I cannot continue to lug this weight around with me any longer.  My knees need relieving.

I have hit the bike riding big time.  I am the annoying twat out in all weathers... flashing lights, hi viz jacket.  I have cycled in sleeting rain where it has hit me in the face like pins being thrown.   I have slid across ice and slush all in the name of exercise.  I have shared the roads with joggers and other cyclists only to be left bereft and alone once the snow came.  But I have carried on throughout.  THAT is how hard core I am.  It is paying off however, as I have lost nine pounds in three weeks...

I have celebrated my sons 16th birthday even though I still feel 21.   I have also gone against every screaming instinct inside me and bought him a moped.  So he can become independent and stop hassling me for lifts...  I have to let him grow up.  I have to let him go....

We had issues with Jurgens work over the Christmas/ New Year period.  People not paying for works done.  It made me angry.  And inevitably caused slight discussions of the shouty nature between the two of us.  The problem is this:  I can't ring his clients and tell them to pay up otherwise I will rip their throat out.  Jurgen has to be diplomatic and calm and act like it isnt sending his wife into an early grave.  I have bills to pay, I am OCD about paying bills on time.   I have children to feed, if  we have done the work pay the bloody bill.  It is quite simple.  Anyway, the money owed has been paid and we are back on track.  Marriage can sometimes be testing and bloody hard work.  But after a rocky start we are out the other side.  (And I blame January for my marital woes.)


I have celebrated my own 38th Birthday.  I can't quite believe how I got here and why the time insists on flying by.  My weeks seem to pass in a blur of work, cooking, children, housework and Jurgen.   I worry about time flying by.  I remember only too well , anxiously waiting to be 18 so we could legally go into a pub and drink them dry.  Waiting to pass our driving tests so we could hit the roads.  Now we are on the slippery slope to the big 4 - 0.  I have mentioned before that my life has improved dramatically as I have gotten older, and this still remains the case,  but sometimes I think it goes too quick for me really to appreciate it.   Sometimes day to day life gets in the way of valuing what you have.   That makes me sad.

My one great feat of the new year is that for the whole of January I have not touched my overdraft.  I appreciate in times of economic crisis that people do what they can to survive and make ends meet but I am sick of bank charges.  I used to pay £2.00 a month for my overdraft.  When I was on maternity this increased to £10 due to the fact that I lived in it.  I guess I should be thankful that banking has been free for me for years and that this may not be the case as we progress into the future but why offer me an "authorised" overdraft  which then integrates into your lifestyle and five years later advise me your upping your overdraft charges to 3 billion pounds a day?   I even have a "zero" charges account.    But they charge me for the use of my overdraft.  There's something not quite right there...

So, the long and the short is that January 2013 has not been too bad for me.   That must mean that the rest of the year is going to be ok too? 

So, not so much of the January blues then.