New Year Greetings

Greetings one and all, and a happy new year to you. It seems like an awfully long time since we last spoke - November, I fancy - for which I apologise. But there always seemed to be something else that needed doing. A bit of decorating here; a bit of morris dancing there; and a new job to get to grips with.

I'm not much of a one for new year resolutions. I've always believed that, if you want to do something like give up smoking or lose a few pounds, you should do it when the fancy takes you, and not wait until the 'new year'. In truth, the first of January is probably a very bad time to think about changing your lifestyle in any appreciable way. I mean, let's face it. Christmas has only just gone, so there's still most of the Christmas cake left and a freezer full of the little snacks that seemed such a good idea when you did that Big Shop on Christmas Eve. The drinks cabinet is still bulging with a stack of half empty bottles of port, sherry and those weird liqueurs left over from your last holiday abroad. And you haven't even started on the Advocaat. Apart from all of these very good reasons for delaying your metamorphosis, we haven't even hit Twelfth Night (the traditional end of the yuletide festivities), and the time of wassailing to ensure a decent crop of apples for the year is still a long way off on January the 17th (old Twelfth Night in the Julian Calendar). Nope. Not a good time to give things up.

Allow me to make a suggestion. Why not start your personal reformation on the 25th of March? Otherwise known as 'Lady Day', this was regarded as the start of the year prior to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. Beginning your resolutions in March will have two advantages. Firstly, you should just about be getting to the end of all that overbought food and drink. Secondly, Lady Day falls around the same time as the start of British Summer Time. The longer, lighter days bring with them a sense of optimism and a feeling that anything is possible; even losing a bit of weight or getting fitter. Lady Day. March. Spring time. New year resolutions. You know it makes sense.

Happy new year.