This may seem rather drastic, but as I began to look at potential activities for January, it struck me that this is a month that always disappears in a hurried blur. Blink and January has gone.

With the New Year break at the beginning of the long summer holidays, and the Australia Day longer weekend at the end, there’s no time for anything to develop. My best option for the month was clear –

#37 Cancel January

It’s not like it would be missed. Nothing happens in Australia in January.

No one goes to the shopping centres:

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Schools are locked, abandoned, unloved:

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It’s too hot. It’s too dry. Paradoxically, it’s even too humid.

The long languid days are filled with the sounds of a few highly paid sportspeople on television thwacking balls with racquets or balls with bats while the rest of us sit and watch. And wait. Wait for January to fade.

Favourite shops go on holiday:

…notice the sign implying 2016 will commence at the end of January?

Even trying to buy something as simple as milk from the corner store on the day before the day of the holiday is thwarted:

… January 25th is a holiday now? 

Where on earth has Australia gone for the month?

The television networks take away their real shows and replace them with… not another interminable episode of QI.

Four Corners?

…gone until February!

Insiders?

…gone until February!

Q&A?

…gone until February!

So I went looking…

and I finally found us:

Who’d have guessed?

There is one massive upside to cancelling January though. With a birthday late in the month, I’ve been able to avoid getting another year older.