Ruth Walker: ‘I think I’d like living in Samoa. Instead, I’m back in the office‘

IT’S two and a half hours into my first day back at work following the holly jollies and there are many words that could describe my output so far.

Productive isn’t one of them. I’ve had e-mails to check, snail mail to open, tea to make, new year kisses to bestow, tea to make, news websites to catch up on, tweets to write, tea to make ...

January. It really is the most depressing month of the year. It’s cold, we’re all broke and at least one of us is beginning to regret taking a punt on that leftover trifle she found at the back of the fridge the other night. The selection boxes are finished (except maybe for the Crunchie, which no one over the age of 12 really likes anyway – it’s a dental disaster waiting to happen). The recycling is piled up at the back door, as if the city dump has been temporarily transferred to suburban Edinburgh. The winds forecast for the next few days now mean Xbox packaging and toilet rolls and pizza boxes will be strewn around the garden and I’ll be too cold and knackered and ambivalent about the whole thing to bother picking it up. It’ll stay there until Easter, when the cardboard starts piling up again.

The good news is that this year I opted out of the whole tree mafia thing, so I won’t have to witness my skeletal Scandinavian spruce blowing around the streets for weeks on end while I wait in vain for the rubbish men to pick it up. Nor will I be spending the best part of January hoovering up pine needles from that footery wee space between the floorboards, where they go to die

The bad news is that things are going to get worse. Roll on the 24th. Officially the most depressing day of all days. Cheery thought, isn’t it?

We should do a Samoa. By which I mean, let’s just ditch January and go straight to February. The islanders – known in Polynesia as the happy people – have done a nifty wee dateline shift, moving west to get closer to their Asian neighbours and effectively losing a day as a result. It was a Friday, incidentally, that they tossed on the calendar scrapheap. Wonder why they didn’t opt for a Monday? That would be a great day to lose. No one would miss it. A Friday, on the other hand, I think I’d miss. It’s a fun day. A day full of promise. One in which to wind down and get in training for the weekend. Friday, chez Spectrum, is cake day. Thank Crunchie it’s Friday.

To ensure the happy people of Samoa stayed that way, employers still had to pay them for the missing day but banks weren’t allowed to charge interest. I think I’d like living in Samoa. Instead, I’m back in the office.

The walk in was like a scene from 28 Days Later (except for the traffic warden, of course – not even an incurable, zombie-making virus could kill those meanies). There’s a shedload of work to get through and the heating doesn’t seem to have kicked in yet, so my fingers haven’t thawed out.

To make matters even worse, I’ve now run out of teabags, the fridge in the canteen is broken and the only chocolate left in the vending machine is a solitary Crunchie. You couldn’t make it up. It’s good to be back. n