The end.

Let's leave aside illness and bereavement for a moment and focus on what else this first month of the year has had to offer. January 2013 has been the month that:

• I fell down the stairs. Top to bottom. I've always liked to imagine that I am the sort of person who if I had a proper injury I would remain calm about it, telling whoever was nearby that I was in a lot of pain and needed an ambulance please. I'm not. I fell down some carpeted stairs, bruising my coccyx and cutting my elbow, and I screamed. Then I sobbed like a baby, pressing my face into Nye's chest and gasping 'I fell. I fell. I fell.' Self-image: shattered. I was fine, I just couldn't sit down very easily for a couple of weeks. My bum still hurts actually. I also really freaked out Ella who is still urging me: 'carefoo mama, faw down stairs. Ouchie' three weeks later. For additional points: I was carrying the bathroom bin when I slipped. As I bumped down the stairs on my arse then collided with the bikes at the bottom, a shower of damp smelly nappies rained down on my head, some of them containing day-old shit.

• (Speaking of shit.) Ammie discovered her own poo, and what fun it is to dig it out of her nappy at nap time and throw it around. Then she pushed her explorations further and dabbled in a little smeering, on her own head. And tasting. Now she takes naps in a romper suit with the buttons done up the back. Beat that kiddo. She also discovered wallpaper stripping, although to be fair she had some help from her sister with that endeavour. There is precisely one room in the house that didn't need repainted when we moved in. Now it needs wallpapered.

• my ankles got so badly bitten by fleas and I scratched those bites so hard that they now look like they have chickenpox and probably will do for the foreseeable future. ( DON'T SCRATCH YOUR BITES CHILDREN.)

• After a couple of years of deliberation I invested in a pair of waterproof, felt-lined Sorel snow boots, aware of the fact that having just left the Scottish Highlands for London, the window in my life where I needed snow boots was probably over. Three days later it started snowing, heavily. The snow lay and lay and lay until it compressed into sheet ice (WHY DON'T THEY HAVE GRITTERS IN LONDON?) and then melted into sloppy slush. The snow boots didn't arrive. My feet got very very cold. I'm still waiting for them to show up.

On the upside:

• it was my birthday, I was 28 and I almost exclusively got booze, chocolate and booze-flavoured chocolate. And when Nye asked me what I wanted to do I said 'take me to the garden centre and buy me a plant..' Middle age is delightful.

As good as my birthday was this year it's really not going to make up for the (literal) shit storm that was the rest of the month. So let's all join together in wishing January 

GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE. (And why don't you take this time out to a good long think about your behaviour. I want to see a total change in your attitude by the time you come back, OKAY?) 

*image Bruno Ripoche, via Hybrid Hunter.