Five things make an unexpectedly January post

• Have I broken the Dreamwidth spell checker? I don't rely on it for spelling, but it does help me spot typos, of which I make a large number (as anyone who reads me already knows). The last few posts though, it has told me there are no spelling errors: what, none? No typos. no names it doesn't recognise, no markup tags, no British Englidh spellings? It doesn't seem possible ...



• I have just packaged up a small birthday gift which, if I can get it to a post office tomorrow, will arrive no more than two weeks late. I am pretty disgusted with myself about this. There are various excuses I might produce (it's hard to focus on a birthday in early January; the recipient is a college friend, we are barely in touch and this ritual exchange of gifts has become silly ...) but none of them is the reason for being so late. I am just really bad at finding packaging, and wrapping things up, not to mention taking them to the post office,



• When did January become such a big deal? New Year resolutions have always been a thing, I suppose, but they were personal - in the sense that you didn't know whether someone had made any, and if so, what, until you asked them. Now my daily paper is full of 'New Year, new you' articles, encouragement to observe Veganuary or Dry January. Even Saturday's Travel section was full of wellness retreats and spas. This is probably no more than the usual level of wellness and lifestyle advice, dialled up a notch for January - but since it is already in excess of my requirements anyway, do we have to increase the volume for January?



• I'm not interested in a spa holiday. With one exception: Spa itself looks rather inviting.



• And in other holiday news: no news, but some long-standing plans. We will spend midsummer on Lindisfarne, and help D. celebrate a significant birthday in Scotland in August. It is too long since we have been in France, and I intend to do something about that this year, probably in the autumn. Which seems a very long way off. We are expecting various visitors in the spring, which is a fun reason for not going away ourselves...