LAUREN BRAVO

I’VE always had an issue with people hating January.

It may be a month entirely given over to grey skies, furniture shop adverts and images of lycra-clad celebrities next to cut-outs of their flabbier selves, exhaling, but it is also my birthday month, and, as such, I won’t hear a word against it.

So, while you’re supping on your cabbage soup and signing your first-born over to David Lloyd, you can always remember that somewhere, I’m sticking my face in a cake while other people clap. Isn’t that a comfort?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

And besides my personal felicitations, there are plenty of other reasons to love January.

Rather than see it as the drill master of months, demanding you better yourself with the help of a screechy whistle, you should look at it as a kind of half-hearted warm-up for the year ahead.

Nothing in January has to be done with any real gumption, because anything a bit substandard can be shrugged off with a simple “meh, it’s January”. January is a dress rehearsal month, where you almost intentionally fail at things, knowing that nobody expected much, anyway.

And, like dress rehearsals, if you actually do the thing brilliantly, then it’s bad, because the real event will then inevitably be a letdown.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The real event in this case being February, and the letdown being pancakes that won’t flip, a lenten vow that lasts 40 minutes and a Valentine’s Day spent alone eating a gateau.

Take your lead from the world of fashion magazines.

The September issue of Vogue is always a weighty tome, because that is the true New Year.

September is about shipping yourself back into shape, evolving a new look and buying a new pencil case from WH Smith.

It always has been.

Meanwhile, January’s Vogue is always a pitiful slip of a thing, barely enough to wedge a draft out from the bottom of the door.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

This month’s issue has Victoria Beckham on the cover, and even she’s wearing a granny jumper.

The jig is up. January operates at half-mast.

It’s on dial-up, not broadband.

While my new year’s resolutions reflect the real pace of the month – “take rubbish out”, “tweeze eyebrows sometime before April”, etc. – everyone else in my life seems to be psyching up for the self-renovation of the century.

New Boyfriend has declared an Age of Austerity and compiled a spreadsheet of all his monthly outgoings (£120 on beer, £8 on Weetabix).

My mate Pete, formerly the man for whom a hamper of value noodles was a decadent Christmas present, is potentially buying a third of a flat.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Just as I’ve vowed to party more and care less, all of my nearest and dearest are climbing mountains then going to bed at 11 with a copy of National Geographic. It’s wrong.

And what’s more, it’s no fun.

For me. So, with just two weeks to go until my birthday, I’m selflessly devoting my month to helping those less fortunate than myself…to give up and wait till February. Cake for everybody!

Related topics: