Column: January does not have to sound the wintertime blues

This month, which apparently contains the most depressing day of the year (January 10) and is supposed to make everyone blue, actually fills me with joy.

Why, you may ask, would I be enraptured with the coldest month of the year?

Well, firstly it’s after all that craziness of the festive period with its ostentation, consumerism and enforced jollity that is omnipresent in the period leading up to – and including – Christmas.

It’s also a quiet, more reflective time when we can see ahead the promise of spring to come, instead of those depressing ‘dark days before ...’

Even if it’s colder at this time of year, it’s good to know that things can only get better on the thermometer and that every day is just a teeny bit longer

I’ve had some good Januarys abroad too: Once when I worked in Athens, the warm sunshine was tangible to the skin.

Other times in Italy, when lighter skies put paid to the leaden ones we endure here.

Although it’s true that this year they are having unusually cold weather over there, in the form of deep snow.

By the end of January we can peep into February and see the first signs of spring, with those beautiful snowdrops, and this heralds that wonderful period in the months ahead as we reach the spring equinox, with all the beauty that follows to look forward to.

This is vastly better than the end of November, when all you have on the horizon is darkness and gloom.

Not all folk are January fanciers though. Pilot’s 1975 hit of the very name, seemed to suggest ambivalent feelings with those unforgettable lyrics:

‘January,

Sick and tired you’ve been hanging on me,

You make me sad with your eyes

You're telling me lies...'

You get the picture!

Also, I should add that some of the best people I know, were born in January including my son.

In fact it seems to have produced a lot of creative genii such as David Bowie, thus further supporting my argument that it is a great month.

So, no matter the cold, dank days, I am January’s biggest fan.