It goes without saying that New Year is awful.

Last year, I returned to work having had one of the best New Year celebrations of my life, holed up in an enormous house in the countryside with twenty friends, only to return home and find that everything was bleak, bleak, bleak.  It was about minus twenty outside (felt like, y’know.  Wind chill and all) but no festive snow to at least put an attractive fluffy white sheen on everything, Christmas was over, the twinkly lights were disappearing fast, taken down unceremoniously lest they remain up causing bad luck in the form of inflated electricity bills or something, or the fear of looking like one of those sad, sad people who turn up in the tabloid press every December with a story about how they eat a turkey dinner every day of the year and pretend it’s Christmas.  Santa had returned to Lapland (what DOES he do the rest of the year?  I’m assuming he sleeps through January-wouldn’t we all do that if we could-but what about like, AUGUST?  What’s he doing up there?  Putting the reindeer out to pasture?  Making hand-carved wooden toys out of mighty Arctic oaks?)

And worse than all that, all the bad weather, all the “Blue Monday” (not the song.  You KNOW what I’m talking about), all the having to go back to work after a nice holiday when you did literally nothing except sit around in pieces of knitwear of variable quality and eat loads of those Lindor chocolates that you don’t even really like.  Worse than all that, Trump was president and it was therefore inevitable that the world was going to end before we even got to enjoy another nice yuletide season.

On the plus side, I did buy a house.  Forgot about that.

Anyway, January.  January is rubs.  Awful.  Horrendous.  Worst time of year to be making any sort of New Year’s Resolutions, particularly ones that involve things like “losing weight,” “working harder” and”being nice to people,” which are very hard to do at the best of times, let alone when you’re in a month-long ice storm, all the Baileys has disappeared into the Christmas paunch and you don’t even have an evergreen tree in your house for comfort anymore.  No, January is a terrible time for the new year to occur.  It should happen in September instead.

Granted, September is far from perfect.  It’s when you have to go back to school, for a start, and when one is a teacher it’s not just the memory of the impending End of Days for hanging around in the woods until all hours, long bright nights and feeling spectacularly bored but yet still thinking it’s better than school ever could be; it’s my still my lived reality.  And I’m sure there was something significant about the way everyone was beating their chests and wailing mournfully over the death of Princess Diana twenty years ago.  Not because they loved her (I’m just going to come out and say this, I wasn’t a fan.  Sorry world, I’m sure she was nice and all, but I didn’t know her, and her public persona at the time was all a bit dippy celebrity with over made-up eyes, sort of a more charitable Kardashian), but because she died right on the cusp of Autumn, when everyone was already depressed about going back to school.  Symbolically done, Di.

However, September does have its joys.  With new pencil cases, maybe a new Paperchase water bottle or a bullet journal (what even is a bullet journal?) September is Peak Stationery.   I even bought myself a new pack of highlighter pens this year.  Pushing the boat right out.  The leaves are starting to turn-a joy that I didn’t fully appreciate until I lived in Japan where people have parties over the changing of seasons and adjust their kimono appropriately, as is only right and proper.  Not to mention, AUTUMN CLOTHES.  The September issue is Vogue’s biggest issue for a reason.  Summer is great and all, but there’s lasting joy to be had in rediscovering last year’s knits and being able to still get away with those summer threads, but with a light and stylish jacket, before it gets all cold and bleak and you have to start wearing the same old jumper to work every day for three months because nothing else goes with your winter coat (the one waterproof one.  I spend endless hours purring over gorgeous fur coats and praying for the kind of cold, crisp weather in which to wear them, and then it goes and rains non-stop for three months and all I can wear is a parka with a hood).

And then there’s the resolutions.  Surely it’s better to make New Year’s resolutions in September, when the sun is still (relatively) high in the sky, you can still dry washing outside and the landscape is not entirely barren, and at the very least you still have a wardrobe full of new season clothes to look forward to.  So, in the spirit of New School Year and all, I’m making the following.

1. I will work hard and achieve my goals (just don’t ask me what they are.  Something about being rich enough to buy a boat?)
2. I will write for pleasure, and screw the stats (yeah, screw you, readers!  Screw the lot of you!  I’m being AUTHENTIC, you know)
3. I will read more books (bought two for £1.20 today in the charity shop so getting off to a good start there.  Now just have to read them).

So, come on ladies and gents, hit me with it.  What are your New School Year resolutions?

September dudes.  Picture actually taken in October, but hey, this is what we have to look forward to y’all.  LEAVES.