Slightly Damp January......

Recorded this day.... January 57th 2019

Dear reader,

I know not what overcame me in the dawning days of this new year, when I espoused the notion of attempting the infernal, self-flagellatory regime known as Dry January.

Perchance it was the unfettered merriment in which I had indulged (I must confess), to excess, over the festive period.  The seeming unending flow of days, filled with a surfeit of comestibles and libations.  Not to mention unconscionable quantities of cheese.

It seemed fitting to curb such wild indulgence with a self-imposed period of purdah.  And so it was, with a determined sense of purpose, that I embarked upon a month of abstinence, with the worthy ambition to cleanse mind, body and soul.

I was unprepared however, for the descent into hell, presaged by the dawning realisation that no matter how long the drear month purported to last, it would feel immeasurably longer without the calming effects of palliative beverage.

I will spare you the torments I experienced as day stretched endlessly after day... dull and monochrome in aspect.  The cold, dead greyness of the world outwith my window, infected my very soul, eliciting a strange malaise, suffused with foreboding and despair.

My mood was not bolstered by reports, daily, of political tumult and incipient collapse of civilisation, raising spectres and portents of such cataclysmic catastrophe as would cause the most sanguine of individuals to despair.

The nights, I declare, were the worst.  Oppressive darkness, desolation and despondency... were all my boon companions, enfolding me in their their dread embrace.

Would this interminable month never end?  Could my scattered wits and the delirious derangement of my mind ever be restored to normalcy?

Somewhere around the forty eighth day of this benighted month, my resolve faltered.  To have come so far, only to fall at the final hurdle was to be my ordained destiny.  With a mere 37 more days to endure, I yielded to the temptation of a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.  

Ah....
What ambrosia!  
What nectar of the gods!  

The dewy beads of condensation forming on the glass, scattering the brilliant illumination of the golden liquid within.
The delicate aromas of fresh citrus, evincing fond memories of warm, sunlit days and balmy evenings.
The crisp, zesty bursts of flavour, tantalising and awakening my lacklustre taste buds, evoking a rush of sensations of such vivacity that my breath was taken quite away, and I confess that a single tear dimmed my eye. 

Any disappointment in my abject failure was but fleeting.  After all...it is not the winning, but the taking part.

But I pledge to rejoin the path of abstinence henceforth, from weekdays, Monday till Thursday... with the beckoning promise of reward at the working week's end.

Henceforth I shall call it Slightly Damp January...