I hate February. Seriously, what has it ever done for me? There’s nothing good about it. Winter has been going strong for at least 3 months (granted October was pretty awesome last year), but now you’re depleted, in full hibernation-mode. Christmas has been and gone so you’re broke and fat. You’ve been promised snow at least twice; “ooh fill up your freezers folks, its gonna be a doozy!” but it never arrived.  You’ve begrudgingly trudged to work through rain, wind, and that biting cold rainy wind that burns your eyes and turns your fingers to stone. You thought you just had to get through January and everything would be fine again. Just keep swimming. The light at the end of the dark cold perpetual tunnel. But no – here’s February and its every bit as bleak as the rest of it.

Suddenly, a glimmer of hope! The mornings start getting lighter, the nights are creeping, tip-toeing further away, ooh is that a ray of sunshine I can feel on my back? And just when you think everything’s gonna be alright, March is here….bang! Clocks back. Back to darkness. Back to misery, and another long ‘when the hell is payday’ month. It was all lies! So February can do one.

So how can cope?

There are many ways we can deal with this nightmare. Stay in every night. Pop some vitamin D. Take up mulling and spend your nights warmly inebriated. But the best answer surely has to be – GET OUTTA HERE! Frankly my dears, this is the only coping mechanism worth any money (I’m not knocking vitamin D or mulling, both are excellent strategies). Scrape your pennies, get another credit card, sell your body – whatever it takes to get you on that plane/bus/boat. Yes you’ll probably spend the next 8 months paying it off. But imagine: the warmth in your bones, the freedom of your toes without socks and shoes, the gently exfoliation of the sand against your skin. Eating outside, without a scarf. This is happy. This is free. This my friends, is the only way.