New Year, new you….

I don’t know what it is about January that makes people think they can change themselves and the people around them.

Count how many people you see jogging at 6:00 a.m on a dark January morning (if you are up at 6:00 am, that is). There are more joggers in cold, dark January than there are joggers for the rest of the year. It is as if come the start of the year, we can cast off our old selves and morph into something thinner, fitter, stronger, more attractive.

I dare say one can become fitter and stronger (if not thinner and more attractive) if one keeps it up, but by the second week of January, the body cannot live on satsumas alone. It craves great thick chunks of white doughy toast, smothered in butter and topped with sugar.  A glass or two of red wine at the end of the working day (good for the heart, you know) becomes more than just an absolute necessity. Above all, we go back to work and life gets back to normal and somehow pressing the snooze button becomes a great deal easier than jumping out of bed and running outdoors in the quest for fitness.

And so this year, I won’t be running but instead will watch everyone else run around me, and try not to be too smug.