From kitchens to Covid... good luck in testing times
SO, a happy and healthy new year to you as we do it all again.
From spending the first few weeks of January asking everyone we know if they’ve had a good Christmas (and not knowing when to stop) to taking back those gifts that turned out to be the wrong size.
Happy new year to you if your resolution is less social media and more real world interaction.
Happy new year and congratulations if you are still with it on day three of your determination to run every day at dawn. Kudos if you’ve gone a stage further and have taken that leap into finally signing up for the gym.
A happier new year (not really) if you’re a gym owner just waiting to scoop up all that cash for those memberships used for the first month or so then never again (one particular gym owner in south Wimbledon still knows exactly where I’m coming from).
Happy new year if, like singer Lizzo, you plan to continue loving yourself and not conforming to society’s idea of the “perfect” body image.
Happy new year to the parents trying to get their kids off the new PlayStations (PS5s) they’ve bought them for Christmas.
REGRETTING
Also to the mums and dads still trying to figure out how to open the battery compartments of their kids’ devices and to the grown-ups already regretting their decision to gift the grandparents a portal (Google it) or an iPad.
Happy new year if you’re about to take the plunge and invest in a new kitchen.
Best of luck to the singletons and couples milling around showrooms over this new year.
Especially the couple
I witnessed yesterday arguing so furiously over an orange splashback (if you know, you know), that one of them stormed out and waited, steaming, in the car. Happy new year to the army of kitchen designers set to become relationship counsellors over the coming months with the simmering tensions over Corian or Quartz worktops unleashing a tidal wave of deeper issues building up over the festive season.
Happy new year to the partners spending this spell trudging around Ikea, knowing they’ll be accused of lacking enthusiasm if they say no – and being too unwilling to compromise over the colour of an irrelevant lampshade if they actually have an opinion.
Happy new year if you’re about to try dry January. Remember, every day is a new day if you’ve lapsed already.
Happy new year if your bins have finally – finally – been emptied. Or if, like Peter Andre, you’re just back from your ambitious Christmas break abroad and are heartily sick of swabs down your gullet or up your nose.
Good luck if, like us, you’re sweating on whether the holiday you’ve paid for will still go ahead, or the way of so many others over the last 18 months.
Happy New Year as we all, regardless of our politics, brace ourselves for Boris Johnson and his cavalcade of clowns to wreck our plans even further.
An even happier new year and good luck to all those trial subjects testing whether Viagra really can stave off Covid.
If 2021 has taught us anything it is that we are all in these testing times together. Let’s try to
enjoy them.