January Is Almost Over, and It's Been... 'Challenging'

Sometimes I wish I hadn't said "it can't be as bad as last year"

Ready to go into battle in February 2025: I shit you not, second month of the year. Do not test me.

So… January’s been a bundle of laughs?! #EyeRoll

Maybe my annus horribilis seems to have decided to extend itself into the financial year — that’d be till 5th April, then — or perhaps even the academic year: end of August! Wouldn’t that be WONDERFUL?

After today there are still three days to go in January. At the end of December I told 2024 to go eat a bag of dicks, and to be honest I’m worried that if I do the same to Jan Twenty-Five (yep, that’s his name)¹ then he’ll run off to his siblings Feb, March, April, May and June — and the rest of the buggers — and snitch his guts up, causing the other months to hatch an even eviler plot against me.

(I’m finding that personifying the months of the year helps me channel my energy into writing awkward grammar. So far so very good.)

Right, I feel a list coming on! Shall we take a look at this month’s contestants for Bundle That Gives Us the Most Laughs? In no particular order…

More knee pain, but this time it’s different. Except it’s not, because it’s almost exactly like the very first leg pain I had nearly ten years ago which started this whole shitty journey to Painsville. About mid-January it was really quite painful for a few days, then on Blue Monday (yeah, that old chestnut…) I woke up at four in the morning with pain SO bad we considered calling an ambulance just so I could grab the paramedics by the shoulders and scream GIVE ME ALL YOUR MORPHINE!

Instead I took =ahem= many, many paracetamol² and waited till first light to see if the pain had subsided… it went from 93% on the Worst Pain You Can Imagine scale to about 65%, and that’s where it’s stayed.

The hideous knee pain is (as I feared) caused by my old friend Sciatica, hurrah! So I’m having to pay for weekly physio again. Which we can’t afford. Yay. The pain is also in the back of my thigh and calf, i.e. the sciatic nerve. I can barely get round the house, going up and down stairs is a nightmare, and I cannot walk the whole 10 mins into town to run errands (I have to drive and park as close as possible, still resulting in me hobbling by the time I return to the car due to the pain).

I also cannot walk the dog.

The dog is refusing to go on walks, which is great for saving my painful leg (see above) but not great for her health. Greyhounds are notoriously lazy, but nine-year-old Suki is a cut above the rest. If there was a Crufts category for Laziest Bugger of a Dog Who Pretends To Be Excited About Walking Then Gets Outside and Refuses To Move then she’d wipe the floor with the competition. Apart from sleeping ALL day (which greys do anyway), she’ll get onto the driveway (sometimes not even down the garden path, tbh) and walk anywhere between 10 yards and 50 yards before planting on the spot and going Nope, I am not walking ANY further! Home! NOW!

But can someone please explain to me how she is not putting on weight and still has muscles that Charles Atlas would be proud of? Her thighs are incredible. She is nothing short of a UNIT (38kg/83lb of solid muscle on a deep-chested, pointy-headed horse house on speed sticks). I think the weather has a lot to do with her reluctance to venture out; I swear to god she gets outside and goes, No one told me OUTSIDE was outside… What IS this??! Unacceptable!

Suki’s go-to position. She can easily do a nine-hour stretch like this, no problem.

I didn’t get a local job I applied for, which would have been perfect in terms of hours, location, what I have the most experience in, etc. The pay wouldn’t have been brilliant but it would at least have meant a regular amount of money coming in that I can rely on. Most part-time jobs unfortunately want you to work 2-3 full days a week, and I’d have to get a dog sitter (not a dog walker, see above) if I did that. Therefore the money I’m earning would go towards paying a dog sitter so what would be the point…?

I’m still looking, I’m still applying, it’s just that that one would have been perfect. I didn’t even get to round two, balls and bugger.

Also! Blue Monday! Our kitchen hob broke in half! A wooden chopping board accidentally fell over from an upright position and came down onto the ceramic hob and cracked it in half! It now needs to be replaced! I’m shouting with these excessive exclamation marks to try and mask just how feckin’ cheesed off I am! (I’d like to say it was a cheese board that came down just so I can add a punny layer to this story but it wasn’t! It was just a regular board!)

Send more funds to buy new hob! And an electrician! And the money to pay him/her!

=deep breath=

The weather has been seriously appalling, and we’re losing track of which storm is which and what each one is called. Two storms in a… week(?) with raging winds and driving rain have left our garden muddier than Glastonbury at the end of the festival. The British population is ready to up and move to calmer climates faster than David Cameron can say Brexit, anyone?

We had Storm Éowyn followed by Storm Herminia (my husband Keith said More like Storm Hernia, hur hur…) with a grand total of about, hmm… 30 minutes(?) between the two. Basically, they got their shifts mixed up and were bloody well double booked on the rota, weren’t they.

Climate change is real, and it’s battering us in the face with its big fat dose of a reality check and LOOK I DO EXIST shoutiness.

On a more (personally) troubling note, two days ago my elderly mother (she’s 90) came down with a virus that’s left her weak, bunged up and coughing severely. The real sting is that she was due to have her first cataracts operation TODAY, and she’s waited six months to have her eyes done. She can barely see at all and she’s still a carer for my father who’s 95 and has advanced vascular dementia. Despite being petrified (her words, though I think I agree with her, the idea of someone poking around my eyes while I’m awake is petrifying), she was looking forward to having it ‘done and dusted’ so her sight can improve.

Her virus symptoms are exactly like the bronchitis I had before Christmas so that doesn’t bode well: you have to stay COMPLETELY still for a cataracts op, and if you’re coughing that’s the last thing you’re able to do. By some miracle I managed to arrange a doctor’s home visit today (yes you read that right, a HOME VISIT) and we’ve got antibiotics on the way.

Poor Mum doesn’t deserve this. F*ck you, winter viruses. Leave the old and the vulnerable alone.

So in conclusion, CAN WE GET A BREAK HERE PLEASE, UNIVERSE? THANK YOU.

Come on Feb, if you think you’re hard enough…

Let’s have a chat in the comments — how’s January been for you? An evil git of a month or something more pleasant (the latter I hope)…

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1. I know Jan is a woman’s name but the month has been so shitty I can only think it’s a man. I checked: cool, Jan is a man’s name too. WHY I AM NOT SURPRISED. Flippin’ patriarchy.

2. Obviously I do NOT condone taking lots of paracetamol, for obvious reasons. I have had doctors recommend me a tailor-made safe dose that’s safe to take despite it being quite a bit more than what it says on the packet for when the pain gets really bad. Only do what the doctors say, kids.