I thought you might like to hear some good news now that the reality of yet another January has hit you like a ton of wilted Santa hats and you’re slumped over the bathroom scales, shaky and dry-mouthed. Yes, like me, you’re probably facing the grim consequences of your dalliance with the chocolate oranges, your brief affair with the creamy mince pies and that torrid showdown with a well-stuffed bird.
Would it be safe to assume that you’re beginning to regret your brief infatuation with the sausage-flavoured gins and the way they slid down your dry gullet like mother’s milk?
Season of abstinence
Maybe you’re one of those considering a long, dry season of abstinence, with a month or two of Puy lentils and prune juice, perhaps, followed by a year of green and mindful living. Or maybe you think you can turn back the prosecco o’clock by jogging up and down the road in your squeaky new runners while the neighbours are still snoozing in their spicy beds. Or maybe you’ve already taken the plunge and joined the gym (again) and are signed up for the dawn yogalates or spinning class.
Alternatively, perhaps you’ve spent the past 24 hours being instructed on the use of a muscle-stretching Pilates Reformer machine by a redundant Christmas elf, and you’re not allowed off the damn thing until they can bounce Christmas baubles on your tightened abs. (No, I’m not speaking personally.)
Or it could be that you’ve already detoxed, Botoxed, and restocked your cupboards with quinoa and curly kale and are now lying among strewn tinsel only gagging for a packet of Tayto.
Well, my friend, forget about getting in shape for 2019, because you don’t have to bother. This is going to be your year. Yep, 2019 is the Year of the Cardigan! I’ve been veritably fascinating myself for a good five minutes now by reading all about it.
You can’t go wrong with a nice solid cardigan. You can drape it over yourself or hoist it under yourself, you can shroud yourself in it from the tip of your purple-veined nose to your manicured Christmas toes. The fashionistas have spoken: the cardie is back!
According to my diligent research (I was emptying ashes into the newspaper), there are ways of wearing a cardigan without looking frumpy. If you button it up skew-ways and kind of drag one side of it back over one shoulder (in a way that would have got you a good slap and three Hail Marys from Sister Brendan), you can make one look sexy. Reveal a bit of your auld clavicle there, Bridie, and you too can be a fashion influencer.
Westlife comeback
Cardigans, eh? And there was I thinking that the new year was going to be all about embracing flexitarianism and facing up to the frightening but very real possibility of a Westlife comeback. In fact, I’d actually decided that one of my resolutions would be to become a flexitarian. (Hang on, I just need to google the definition again . . . Yeah, that’s it, I’m going to be “a person who has a primarily vegetarian diet but occasionally eats meat or fish”, as opposed to an indiscriminate meat-eater capable of devouring the cat if I come home “hangry” – hungry and angry – from a long day spent weaving yarn into Westlife bouffants.)
The reasons for my conversion to flexitarianism are that I just hate to be behind the times when it comes to worldwide trends and also because someone told me recently that a cow can produce up to 400 litres of methane gas a day. Not being terribly au fait with the digestive systems of cows, I have no idea if this is true or not, but I was wondering, given that I’m planning on seriously greening up my life in 2019, if I could power a small car on methane? Is there, perhaps, a mechanism that could be attached to a cow’s beneficent bottom and then inserted into my fuel tank? Happy moo-tering!
Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, cardigans! Cardigans have a definite eco vibe about them, especially the floppy and apologetic kinds beloved of skinny actresses with permanent head colds. But I worry that as I move towards sustainability, and start thinking about wearing sneakers made out of pineapples, and handbags made out of my granny’s reconstituted dentures, the clothes will, by some strange osmosis, maketh the man (or woman) and I’ll end up being so nice that I’ll be in danger of joining the audience on Westlife’s reunion tour. Perish the thought.