It’s the middle of the bleak mid-winter, but you will hear no frosty wind making moan here. As I de-iced the chariot at 7am to take a sleepy daughter to early morning swimming the joyful journos of the Today programme reminded us that it’s Blue Monday. Not that I needed the reminder. Every exposed inch of flesh had already turned that colour. But apparently this is generally considered to be the bleakest day of the year. The day when more sickies are thrown, more arguments had, more anti-depressants consumed and more wardens are on duty on Beachy Head. (Actually I’m not sure about that but it seems likely). Driving along the Eastbourne seafront though, under an icily blue, clear sky it was difficult to feel anything other than elated; the Red Moon having given way to a dazzling, almost white sun climbing north to lord it over an unusually placid English Channel, or La Planche (The Sleeve) as the French call it. Perhaps, as part of the deal to stay in Europe (after the Second Referendum that has yet to be announced) we could reach an accommodation avec Les Miserables? After all it’s more our moat than theirs. Remember that splendid wartime headline? “Fog in The Channel, Europe cut off”! Oh for those heady days of Empire when ‘Great’ and ‘United’ really were appropriate titles for Britain and Kingdom.
Alison (my wife) and I will spend the day on tenterhooks as the son and heir (Oliver by name) undergoes stringent and examining tests and torture at Eastbourne College to ascertain whether or not he is worthy of a Sports Scholarship to said establishment. We (Alison and I) feel, without a hint of parental prejudice, that he has the talent. He will have to prove that he has the desire. Time will tell, as it so often does….especially the speaking clock. To while away the long hours of nail-biting anticipation the G&F (grace and favour) apartment is about to be given a ‘deep clean’. Not by some hired, highly trained and fully qualified professional, but by your ageing correspondent, who’s already got housemaid’s knee, butler’s elbow, footman’s ankle, scholars hip and a lack of backbone…..especially when it comes to housework. ‘Deep’ means hoovering all the extensive carpets, followed by washing all the floors, then scrubbing the kitchen and all its appliances to within an inch of their lives, before donning the Marigolds (if not already donned) and setting to with a bucket of bleach to bring the bathrooms (well bathroom and loo) up to Inspection standard. The Commanding Officer has already pointedly run her finger along the top of a few pictures and looked in disgust at her dusty digit. I fear a high standard will be demanded when she reviews my work later in the day. To think I could be out earning £800 a day in the Dubai Desert talking knowledgeably and interestingly about golf; to the limited number of people who find golf interesting. The good news is that the frozen ground is so hard that it would be futile to attempt the much needed digging of the flower beds.
A final thought; if today is Blue Monday what and when is its opposite number? Where falls the day when everyone rips their clothes off under a sparkling sun and dances in joyful merriment with total strangers? And (I know you shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘and’ but this is my blog and I make the rules) what is it called; Gay Sunday? (With apologies to the LGBTQXYZ community)
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