Resolve not to make New Year resolutions

Well done if you are but if you’re not, blame the time of year. I know it’s a clean sheet and everything – this January malarkey – but really what a silly season to start being all virtuous.

There we are, all still dizzy from the efforts of turning our homes into fairy-lit snow globes, blowing up airbeds and finding room in the fridge for ten tons of cheese and a bottle of Baileys, yet trying to get sensible and make life decisions.

Not only are we exhausted, we’re all still eating leftovers, emergency mince pies and Christmas chocolates, so any healthy eating vow can go straight out the window. It’s hard to be pure when faced with a Toblerone.

As for resolving to exercise more, who but the most dedicated can still find their running shoes when the house is still awash with holly, let alone use them for a jog! It’s hard enough finding the time and energy to pack all the decorations away, before the bad-luck deadline of Twelfth Night.

It’s also impossible to keep the pledge of being a better person, when people ask if you’ve had a nice break or lament the fact that they’re back at work after a two-week break and you want to slap them.

It’s not their fault. They don’t know that you haven’t really stopped, and, unlike them, you weren’t enjoying a big Yuletide run-up with the family, spending endless days taking winter walks and playing whist, but interspersing work with an odd mulled wine and a quick dip into the Quality Streets.

Even if you didn’t actually black an eye, it’s the black thoughts of anger and resentment that conspire against any promises to be nicer in 2019.

So, I say make resolutions by all means – only make them on your birthday or on the first day of spring – some time when when you’re not at a bit of a natural low, and I know from experience.

Thinking I was rotting my brain listening to easy-read thrillers driving home from work last week I downloaded a book on England’s history for a smarter start to the New Year.

It’s brilliant, but my head was so filled with post-festive to-do lists and the sheer fatigue of it all, that I lost my place by the Battle of Agincourt, got cross with myself to such an extent that when I got home threw my trainers to the back of the wardrobe, poured a glass of wine, got out a curry to microwave and looked for someone to thump.

I think I’ll leave the War of the Roses until later in the year.