Whimsical Musings of a Loon

It's that most, wonderful time...of the year! No, not Christmas (thankfully). It's summer festival time, a period of a few months when the media go music-latest-band-mad. Newspapers are packed with photographs of music revelers basking in sun...or wallowing bravely in mud and torrents of rain. And the obligatory retro-comeback star (a la Shirley Bassey) in wellies. But as much as I love my music (don't get me started on how much I adore Rufus Wainwright and how he re-seals my wounded soul), my favourite festival is actually one of the book variety. The 2009 Hay-On-Wye literary festival comes to a close, and once again I am left counting down the days to the 2010 festival. Hay-On-Wye has always been a favourite jaunt of mine. My parents took us there frequently as kids on rainy Sunday afternoons when we had exhausted all the local castles and museums. Admittedly, I probably wanted to go to Disney Land if I had had the choice, but I am glad for it now. It was at Hay I realise...

January is an odd month. There's the anti-climax of a new year, which, after the build up of Christmas, can be rather depressing. There's also the cold; the harsh, dark weather can dampen your mood. You're left with the daunting prospect that there's still a few months to go of all this until spring. It makes you want to hide under the duvet and hibernate for three months. With a dvd box-set of the X Files and an endless supply of tea. (I would slip out to watch a rugby match or two though...) Themes that always seems to crop up in January however, are resolutions, and in particular detox. You hear it everywhere. 'I'll give up smoking'. 'I'll get fit'. 'I'll eat healthily'. 'I'll give up murder'. (Perhaps not the last one) But it's as if we eat so much in the name of Christmas, we try on the jeans on January 1st and freak out. It inspires us to realise this suddenly, something that we should have really twigged in July...