The long dark tea-time of the year

I witnessed a good omen at the crack of midnight. As London fireworks freckled the perennial cloud cover orange, a neighbor set loose four little fire balloons into the night. The sky rose up to meet them as they glided, hopeful, unashamed, brilliant, out into the big world. I watched in childish wonder, having never seen such a thing before. After a pause, my neighbor unleashed a fifth balloon. This left me a bit worried.

At first light. 

As we enter the year of the skint rabbit, and in keeping with the general mood of austerity and blerg, I'd like to raise a modest sidecar toast to your coming 365 days in an appropriately downbeat but affordably hopeful manner:

May the pot-holey road rise up to meet you and may fowl economic winds always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face when you dream, while in reality the rain falls soft upon your cramped bedsit. May your year not suffer excessively for the excesses of years past. And until we meet again, may you hold your dear ones in the palm of your heart, and never tire of eating tinned beans together by candlelight. 

Christmas is long unwrapped. Crackers cracked. Turkeys gobbled. Household alcohol, sugar and butter reserves are at record lows. But in the silver linings department, waistlines remain plentiful. This may be the case for some time to come, as New Year resolutions were axed in an effort to incur savings at the Department of Introspective Affairs.

Midwinter is so very bleak. January actually means 'a month-long graveyard shift'. Seriously—check the Dictionary of Mañana. But complainers like me have been complaining thus for at least as long as women have been having children. And I know that spring will ultimately bloom again, and my sense of optimism will simultaneously emerge from the dark. In the meantime, winter takes advance payment for those finite, perfect sunny days ahead at the height of summer.

The cure for the blergs. 

Now I understand why my Scandinavian ancestors braved all manner of adversity to migrate a little closer to the equator. I suspect they are laughing at me through time and space for doing just the opposite. That said, I have high hopes that this year will be brighter and sail higher than the last one, for all four of us here at Chaos HQ.

Humbug. Happy New Year.