January's Busy Blahs

If you look back at previous January blog entries, they are thin and not particularly interesting. January for me is anti-climactic after weeks of Christmas and Canada anticipation. It's grey, grey, grey, and damp, damp, damp. My hair is at its' flattest, and my skin it's driest - blech. In short, I'm not a fan of January. This year it's even been a challenge to run which usually cures me of any mental malaise. It's icy underfoot and did I mention the damp, damp, damp part?

To be honest, I am not really a big fan of winter. There I said it. Living in Geneva has cured me of most of winter's charms (skiing is really the only charm left). Here, it mostly only snows in the mountains where snow belongs. We open our doors and leave them open as early as March and often begin a 7-8 month season of eating outdoors shortly after. Spring flowers poke their first heads out of the ground in February and my roses usually bloom until November.

January is also the month when all of the insurance bills arrive en masse, and the Christmas present-laden VISA bills. My to-do list gets carried over from the previous January with almost all items still intact (booking a colonscopy has been on my list through 3 Januarys now). It all just makes me want to pull the covers over my head and go back to bed. Can't do that though, because life restarts frantically after the December lull. Book group, writing group (now if only I could get writing again), my feeble attempt at blogging and all of the weekly to'ing and fro'ing for J: speech therapy, English school, piano lessons, football, judo, french school homework, english school homework, piano practice, blah blah blah.

In spite of my January blahs, the optimist in me is slowly percolating up to the surface. Skiing started this month and has been great. Our annual ski holiday is less than a month away (minus the Millers this year, blah!), I am deep into planning our Easter (Venice), Spring (London) and summer (South of France and Levanto) holidays. Sheila is coming for a long weekend in 5 weeks, and my mum arrives for her 3-month long stay with us in 6 weeks. Several Canadian friends are also travelling to see us this year. There are lots of aperos and dinners with friends and neighbours on our agenda.

We're all healthy, J is doing fantastic in school, we're speaking french more fluidly than ever, and there is a delicious aroma of Boeuf Bourgignon coming from my kitchen; can't eat that in July! It's January 27, only 3 more days and it's February. Time to perk up and banish the blahs.