I will try my best not to grump about the New Year! I secretly quite like it really. It's a chance to feel fresh. Spring isn't that far away, lighter days are really happening, if not thoroughly apparent, and if you mark January as the beginning, then we begin again, clean slate. Anyway, back to The Joy of Grumping! The two main parts I don't like about New Year are (a) alcohol and (b) resolutions.

I had my battle with alcohol some years ago and I won. I am extremely lucky as I caught myself before I stumbled too far down a path. I can now enjoy a glass of something and leave it there. Two glasses on a special occasion. This was my goal. And I haven't wavered. I know I will never go back because I have had some deeply stressful times, many lows, many challenges, many opportunities and I am simply changed. My reason for putting alcohol near my mouth is now completely different.

Then we have resolutions. Also known as The Guilt Trip. Resolve to be picture perfect, stress-free, sugar-free, alcohol-free, exercise adoring, fresh air breathing, nutritionally balancing, family orientating, charity volunteering, save the world-ing and otherwise be like Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama in a Baywatch beach scene.

The connection between (a) and (b) in this season is that everywhere we look and listen we are surrounded by them. The programmes, the offers, the jokes, the cards, the expectations, the conversations, we are bombarded. So please, you decide. You decide whether to be whirled up like a Yule log and carried along with the icing sugar or whether to step out, switch off and enjoy your personal choice. There is no right or wrong. It's more concise than that. Its personal.

There. Grump over. Thank you for travelling with me this past while and may we keep walking together through 2017. I may need your hand to steady me as I balance over the stepping stones and my hand is there for you. Be well.

Love from

The room above the garage

A Moodscope member.