Happy Monday!

It’s Blue Monday today, which is basically the worst day of the year. It’s three weeks into the New Year and no-one has any money, there isn’t another Bank Holiday until April and Christmas feels like a distant memory. That’s in normal times, but we are in the middle of a global pandemic and in the UK, in our third lockdown. So added to the usual misery we are sitting in our houses all alone trying to summon up the will to live and some enthusiasm for work without any actual human contact or trying to homeschool disregulated children and keep all the work/home things in balance. That’s bad, but worse that that is that the situations above are best case scenarios. Other people are having to go out and work in shops (not exactly safe) or have no work and are quietly panicking about how to feed children/pay bills.

I say all this not to make you feel worse but to share a tiny flash that has illuminated all this gloom. My brother send me flowers on Friday and I won the office quiz!

Other things I did to cheer myself up over the weekend. I made marmalade, I changed my bed*, I broke open the sour cherry compote (which was truly the best thing I preserved last year) and I did some other preserving, marmalade (which didn’t set properly – I’ll sort that out tonight!), chicken stock and chickpeas. I also read two books and watched ‘A History of Swearing’ on Netflix. I also reached out for some human connection and called my brother, my mother and some friends. I wrote postcards. I had therapy and did yoga.

This morning, I’m not the most cheerful person in the world (I never am and it’s January!) but I’m more balanced than expected. That’s really my trick, I don’t reach for perfect, I reach for balance. It’s much more achievable than perfect and ultimately better for you!

So that’s what I’m thinking about this week. Balance. Working out what small things will make me more cheerful and doing them. Today that means cherry compote and yoghurt for breakfast, an afternoon walk, doing the ironing tonight and having a bath before bedtime.

That’s all I’ve got. I hope you all have a great week and can think of some small, cheerful things that will give you balance!

*the best housekeeping habit you can ever get into is that of changing your bed weekly. Clean beds are the best thing in the world for comforting troubled minds and bodies and it’s a treat you can give yourself every week. If you can, I really recommend it.