Today – January 18 –  is the most depressing day of the year.

Allegedly.

According to the myth it is the most soul destroying day in the calendar. For starters Mondays have a natural grimness – at least for those people on the 9 to 5 treadmill like most of us, and Dolly Parton. We are still in the bowels of winter, with inadequate exposure to sunlight, no immediate prospect of longer days, and about a week to go before the first payday since the Christmas spending apocalypse.

Luckily it’s all just bullshit – this ‘blue Monday’ malarkey was invented by a travel agency about 10 years ago to encourage people to book their summer holiday. It is not backed up by any psychological research or analysis. However the notion of a ‘most depressing day of the year’ seems to have stuck, and every year without fail someone mentions this at the coffee machine on the 3rd Monday in January (well aside from 2015 when I avoided this conversation, as I was ‘resting’ last year. ) Maybe people tell themselves it is the worst day of the year, as when they are brushing their teeth of an evening, before bedtime on the 3rd Monday, they will realise that it was just an ordinarily foul Monday.

That’s what today was like for me anyway. I leave the house at 7.38 to be at the bus-stop by 7.58, catch the 8.00 bus and arrive at my desk at 8.45. It was daylight by the time I arrived this morning, and the coffee machine was broken. I had a tea.

That’s pretty much the mot exciting thing that happened all day so far. It may not be the most depressing day of the year but it is certainly among the most boring.

On the plus side the new TV and oven hob was delivered and installed today. I have no TV package yet so no Eastenders for me tonight.

And I made my inaugural pot of chili chicken curry and rice for my dinner. When I moved into my glorious new abode I discovered that due to a previous mishap involving a pot of noodles boiling over, that a button had melted on the oven leaving the front right ring, permanently at full power. That is no longer the case.

I have been over to look at it a few times.

It’s the little things