Pre-New Year Blues

For the past few days I have been feeling irritable, tearful and generally pessimistic about everything from the future of this country to whether my new hair colour makes me look like Morticia Adams. Yes, I am entering my annual post-Xmas-pre-New Year slump.

It is not helping that for the past week I have been eating an extra 1,000 calories per day (most of which consist of Fortnum & Mason truffles for breakfast), combined with late nights and travelling to see relatives. I cannot put my finger on it, but I'm just not feeling that great.

I have become accident prone. My husband has had to scrape me off the floor twice in the past 48 hours. The first as a result of my foot getting stuck in the lift to our appartment and me tripping over (I landed on the hall floor crying, pounding the lift door, surrounded by suitcases and bags of presents - just as our neighbours and their parents came in). The second incident involved me clocking myself on the cupboard door in the kitchen whilst unpacking the shopping.

New Year is always touted as being an exciting time, a time for celebrating and making resolutions for the coming twelve months. I have always found it to be a slightly disconcerting time, where you look ahead into the great unknown with trepidation.

However, one of the redeeming features of this particular week of the year is the ample shopping opportunity. I take myself into town (or even on the internet) to do some "sales" shopping every year, knowing full well that I will find nothing I like in the sales but will come back with something I have been coveting since before Xmas (and which santa/my husband failed to note). You have to be very disciplined to shop in the sales like this. It is very easy to talk yourself out of buying things you want at full price and in to buying things you don't want which are in the sale.

This year I have come back with the book "Heroines" by Jessica Ruston, some new Chanel mascara and Origins Ginger Souffle body cream; all of which were full price, all of which I wanted, and, hopefully, all of which will help to restore me to some form of sanity before going back to work on Tuesday. Result.