Blue Monday

The third Monday of January is traditionally known as ‘Blue Monday’ and is the most depressing day of the year.

Even without the help of a Pandemic

Overcast and a cold and a bit rainy, the weather was in on it.

My Latin pupils, glimmering pale green and glum in the Zoom-light lesson, were in on it.

As if to emphasise the fact we would be going nowhere, Nigel had made an appointment for the car to be MOTed.  He was in on it too.

Outside, the garden looked grey-brown and dead.

However, I channelled the overly-cheerful 1913 literary heroine, Pollyanna, and looked for some things to make me glad.

One was the flock of redwing, wintering here from Scandinavia. (They clearly don’t know there are visa issues since Brexit.)  They landed on the cotoneaster tree outside my window, much to the consternation of the local blackbird who shooed them off.  But as soon as he turned his back they returned, swallowing down the bright red berries whole – like you or me gulping down an entire tennis ball.

The other was ‘Running Family’.  We see them sometimes when we go for a walk.  Dad, Mum and two small boys.  They belt along the pavement with the Dad zig-zagging backwards and forwards encouraging the boys.  Dad probably thinks they are doing it for the sake of the boys.  But Mum probably suggested it so Dad would run off his surplus energy and settle down quietly when they got home.

There.  Done it. Got through Blue Monday.