J is for January

and no more jumping through hoops, hopping in a sack, leaping over a fence and then crawling through a tunnel, all with a party hat on.

Christmas is over; and with it the multi-tasking joy of cramming enough cooking for a two year period into a fortnight, imbibing enough alcohol for the same, nipping out on Christmas Eve for last minute presents and forgetting to get extra wrapping paper, singing along to carols on the radio because there's no time to get to the carol service, (or in my case tuning into Radio 4 to catch the service from King's College only to find it had just finished), stuffing stockings, trying to find a clean jumper and then smiling non-stop at the dreadful cracker jokes whilst a dog throws up in the corner having found a box of chocs.

January's jumping is about the 400m hurdle race ahead. The flat race in between is, for me, the day to day running of the household; the completion of several hundred words each working day without getting too hung up about their quality; keeping cool when another boy-racer tries to overtake on a single track lane; not minding when it rains for the 295th day in a row; burying another family pet; doing battle with mechanical gadgets that go wrong, all the usual. Some hurdles are known, such as exams for offspring one and two, galvanising numbers two to four into some kind of action before their father returns from work and finds them slumped in front of the great god that is the TV screen, meeting self-appointed deadlines for this never-to-be-finished novel and getting the eldest off to university in the autumn, (dependent of course on how well her hurdles are met).

There will be other curve-balls. The oil is bound to run out the evening before a big freeze, which will coincide with the chimney needing to be swept and the gas bottles for the cooker draining miraculously. A car will die, it's a cyclical thing and I feel sure we're due to complete one such cycle soon. If this record rain continues, we'll have to invest in a boat overnight and none of us sails. The workplace is a treacherous one, planned careers can come unstuck overnight; and no one wants to take on an unheard of wannabe author!

The energy to run the race is provided by the thought of holidays planned, of snow forecast, of the hope for cessation of interminable rain, the prospect of that long talked about BBQ summer, the joy taken in the health and happiness of the family and meeting with friends old and new; and the sure knowledge that however much we think we can see the year in terms of 100m sprints and bends, our legs will be burning at the end of the 400m as though we've run a series of marathons.