New Year?

I may be mistaken, but it seems only twelve months ago that it was last a new year. And the older I get, the more I wonder what there is to celebrate about a new year, which is, after all, just a simple change from the end of one month to the start of another. Apparently, around two million turned out to watch the fireworks in Sydney, Australia, whilst a rather more select 250,000 attended the London pyrotechnics. I, as always, watched from the comfort of my living room. With a cup of tea and a biscuit.

What is it about the turn of the year that obsesses us, both individually and collectively? TV stations and the printed news media give us their Reviews of the Year, often focusing on a list of those luminaries who died. Magazines tell us how to be A New You, offering tips on resolutions, diets, giving up smoking and the like. All of which beg the question...if you want to turn your life around, why wait for some arbitrary date to do it? If it's October and you're thinking of packing up smoking, why wait until January? If for no other reason, it'd save you a bit of money. If you have a twenty-a-day habit, stopping smoking in October could see you saving around five hundred pounds.

I've decided that, if I do have to celebrate the new year, I'm going to do it on the 25th of March. At the risk of being a bore, I've previously mentioned that, until 1751, the new year started on that date, otherwise known as Lady Day. Falling as it does exactly nine months before Christmas Day, it's the day when the Archangel Gabriel is said to have informed the Virgin Mary that she was to bear Jesus. And this year (or next year, to be pedantic), it falls on the Sunday when the clock is advanced by one hour, giving us 12 hours, 30 minutes and 53 seconds of daylight during which to celebrate. Contrast this with the measly 8 hours, 1 minute and 47 seconds vouchsafed to us on the first of January.

Dare to be different. This March the 25th, wish all your friends and neighbours a Happy New Year. And rather than giving something up, take something up. Clear your clutter. Construct model aircraft from kits. Learn Anglo Saxon. Or even start morris dancing...

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.

A hundredweight of drivel

I think it was one of my now long-departed grandparents who said, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Were they alive today, that same grandparent might also advise that "If you can't think of anything to blog about, then don't blog at all." Were I to follow this latter piece of advice, it's likely that this blog would be either very sparse, or (which is more likely) non-existent. The truth of the matter is that, over the last year and a bit, I've managed to say very little of consequence, but have said it a hundred times. This is indeed my hundredth post.

We've had to batten down the hatches here in Sussex over the last few weeks. The weather has been terrible, giving me an excuse to have a proper open fire in the grate, something that, coming from smoke-free London, still fills me with childish delight. The recent stormy weather has also resulted in a rather curious phenomenon. We inhabitants of Seaford found ourselves with a sandy beach. Seaford beach is usually resolutely pebbled, its mile or so of flint being marshalled and kept in place by an army of heavy bulldozers that fight to prevent longshore drift from scouring away the beach completely. But over the last couple of weeks, the storms washed away the shingle and left behind a beach that, although it didn't rival those of Thailand or the South Seas, would nevertheless have allowed the building of sandcastles. If anyone had been there to build them, that is.

It's been a funny couple of weeks. In one of my (thankfully) exceptionally rare visits to Tesco's, I saw a raincoated sixty-something man get increasingly frustrated with the self-service till. He'd bought a couple of small items, and, sensible man that he was, had decided to pay with some of those vouchers that the supermarket sometimes sends one through the post. Upon the appropriate prompt, he put the aforesaid voucher into the appointed slot. Nothing happened. Our friend then decided that the voucher must have become lodged in the machine. So, he grabbed a handful of leaflets from the counter (Clubcard application forms, I fancy they were), tore them into strips, and started to insert them into the voucher slot. Nothing happened. Then something happened; the machine disgorged the voucher. He put the voucher back in. Nothing happened. He inserted further bits of Clubcard leaflet. Out came the voucher again. By this point, I was both wearied and fascinated at the same time, so I had a discreet word with a nearby sales assistant, suggesting that the gentleman might need a little help. He was only about three feet from the assistant, but at no time did he ask for anything in the way of aid. Perhaps he was at a loose end that day and the whole thing afforded him with a little diversion. I'm not keen on those self-service machines. They always tell me there's an "unexpected item in the bagging area." That unexpected item always turns out to be my shopping. If shopping is unexpected, what would be an "expected" item? A set of false teeth, perhaps? A copy of Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy? Or maybe a sense of ennui? Whatever that is.

A few days after this, I saw Mr. Toad of Toad Hall fame, outside the station. Of course, it wasn't actually a toad; it was a man. But he was sporting the kind of garb Mr. Toad would have worn to drive his car - bright yellow corduroy trousers, lovat green jacket with a red check, peaked motoring cap of a similar material. It was with great difficulty I resisted the urge to say "poop poop!" before running away. Just thought you'd like to know.

This post is in danger of turning into stream of consciousness drivel, if it hasn't already. My initial purpose was to wish you all a very happy new year. I don't make new year resolutions, and the closest Mrs. H has come to one so far this year is when she said, "I think I'm drinking too much. I think I'll just have a couple of gin and tonics." (She doesn't drink too much, dear reader!) No; I think if you resolve to make some change to your life, any time is a good time. Why wait until January the first? However, if I were to make a resolution, it would be to get something written other than this humble blog. The pilot episode of Pardon my Jaguar, perhaps? Or some more of the perpetually unpublished Middenshire Chronicles.

I think I've already taken up far too much of your time. A very happy new year to all of you, my bloggy friends. I'll see you in 2010. Perhaps then I'll have something useful and/or interesting to say. It would make a change, wouldn't it?