January

The sky wasn't half as interesting in the picture I took of the Exe Estuary this morning, so I thought I'd swap it with this one taken by me in Tierra del Fuego at about the same time last year - in January. Abiding images are of vast windswept landscapes, and particularly the awesomeness of the skies. They were so photogenic that you could just point a camera skyward and click, without looking.

January is the theme of today's writing because, as my birthday month, I've always felt the need to stick up for it. According to something I read in The Times this morning, one of the days this week is supposedly 'the most depressing day of the year'. I didn't feel the need to remember which one, and instead decided to prove otherwise. Of course, it helps that it's been mostly bright and sunnyish since last Friday when I arrived back in glorious Devon, following a six week visit to Australia. I'm not name dropping on purpose (S. America, Australia), but it's a fact which contributes towards my determination to defend the negative connotations attached to January.

On the sixteenth of the said month I became a year older, hence the 'post' in the above midlife crisis title. From what I read in the papers, listen to on the radio, watch on the tv, etc., I feel sure that I am well past those ages which qualify as 'mid-life'. Not that I necessarily would, but I can't emphathise with the latest fad focused on 'looking good at fifty', as I am truly in the twilight of that particular decade. I had to get the twilight word in somewhere, as I came close to using it in the title for this blog, but chickened out at the last minute.