Porridge

Try as I might to ignore it January always gets under my skin. I know Christmas should be all forgotten about by now but it’s the blissful revelry of the holidays that makes it so hard to back to the real world in the howling weather. For those few weeks of visiting and partying all thoughts of what we should be doing, where we should be living and on and on go out the window. Motivating myself is like pushing a greasy boulder up Mount Everest with my feet. I can no longer justify eating trifle as a main meal and I just have to accept that it’s time for porridge and bracing walks. In the right frame of mind (not mine) porridge and walks beats sitting in the traffic, lucky me. Rumour has it that oatmeal helps to produce the feel-good chemical, serotonin in your brain so not only is it a slow-release energy food, it makes you happy too. Let’s see. The porridge of my youth was a gloopy, grey wallpaper-paste impersonator, I couldn’t take it. I now make it with milk and douse it with honey. It’s not just okay, it’s really yummy. Have this before or after a winter walk and glow with pride while you avoid all the other things you ‘should’ be doing!