HAPPY NEW YEAR

January.   Gloomy mud-slick Northern days slither by, almost unnoticed, with barely a ripple of light from dawn, through noon, to twilight.  The lamp in the dining room stays on all day, but who knows, or even cares what day it is? Some days slip past without me even setting foot outside, apart from to wrangle the teetering bags of recycling that patiently await collection. Even with the colour-coded timetable blu-tacked to the kitchen cupboard, we still manage to miss the anomalous...