Another decade, another year.

Another decade, another year.

So here we are at the beginning of a new decade and the New Year is but two days old. This is another chapter of our lives, the next page in our lives, the first words of this brand new book or novel and another decade stretches in front of us rather like that long journey into the unknown, uncharted territory perhaps but nonetheless intriguing. This is the time to put everything into some kind of sober perspective and just face the challenges that may test us to the limit with a philosophical shrug and just get on with it.

Now let's see. Where are we? It's back to work, school or university and you're still shrugging off the effects of too much alcohol, over consumption, prodigious amounts of food and drink, relatives who may still be cracking Christmas crackers and then finally, when all the festivities are over, you begin to re-discover your bearings, a re-orientation with the real world because the real world seemed to be put on temporary hold for the whole duration of Christmas.

Here we are at the start of 2020, which does sound like the working title of an Arthur C. Clarke science fiction novel that can confidently predict the future with an uncanny accuracy. American soul singer George Benson once penned the lyrics of a song called 2020. If we are to believe those who takes these things lightly 2020 should be the year when all of us should have far sighted and peripheral vision.

But it's January and we all know what that means. This is the longest month of the calendar year and for some of us January seems to go on indefinitely. Still, we can do the kind of things that we normally do at this time of the year. We can once again trot down to our local gyms, forking out substantial amounts of money in order to get fit and healthy. Our intentions are worthy but by the start of February when the appetite for hard work has gone and desire is wilting, we stop going to the gym because the incentive has vanished without trace and besides who are we kidding?

Over the years the routine has been a familiar one. We eat ravenously over the whole of Christmas and by the end of Boxing Day our trousers, once so reliable, are no longer fit, the shirt buttons are popping like balloons and the midriff is on the point of exploding. Our stomachs, which may have served us so faithfully, are now rebelling and crying out for help. We feel unreasonably bloated, ridiculously overweight and never quite sure why we allowed ourselves to get into this state in the first place.

The pounds and stones are piled on, we wish we hadn't eaten too many of those mouth watering mince pies, polished off too many boxes of Celebrations and Quality Street chocolates and those delicious biscuits that had to be devoured because, quite frankly who can resist a biscuit? Then by New Year's Eve we look at ourselves in a mirror and for some of us this is rather like laughing at ourselves in one of those distorted fairground mirrors.

Oh for those calories, the cholesterol, the vast quantities of the kind of refreshments that would have been considered as both forbidden or just unnecessary at either lunch or tea time at any other time of the year. It is the time of the year when we begin that punishing quest for bodily perfection, muscular flawlessness, the body beautiful, the six pack from paradise, the gorgeously defined pectorals, the handsome tan and that unmistakable resemblance to an Adonis.

We hurl ourselves committedly onto the running machine, pedal like crazy on the bikes, pulling, stretching, sweating until we're red in the face and then gasping for breath. It is full blooded exertion and exercise on a quite monumental scale and all of us are convinced that if we keep going like this for at least the next three weeks Arnold Schwarzenegger, when even his stomach was as flat as an ironing board and muscles were bursting out of every part of his body, would be deeply envious if he could see us now.

In theory it seemed like the most advisable of all ideas but in theory it really does seem like some deluded pipe-dream. We pay our yearly subscriptions for the gyms in January and then discover that the rest of the year is a long time and we'll never reach the required standard and ambition. So we resign ourselves to defeat or perhaps a moral victory in as much that we have got this far. Suddenly those sweatbands, now the fashion statements that never go out of fashion, are now consigned to the attic or the back of a cupboard, the trainers are thrown into a local re-cycling plant and your morale has now reached rock bottom.

And so we move onto that famous yearly set of New Year's resolutions. Now these are the classic old chestnuts as old as time itself. We promise at the beginning of a New Year that we're going to be very good to ourselves, paragons of virtue, models of self restraint, giving up both smoking, drinking immediately, doing anything that remotely resembles unhealthy living and vowing that we'll never do anything that will either harm us permanently or endanger our lifespan with disgustingly debauched behaviour.

So we set up these rigorously strict dietary regimes such as sticking to the vegan lifestyle where meat has now been abolished from meal times, chips are now history, ice-cream is a swear word, pizzas have been abandoned from tea times for ever and booze is perfectly outrageous. Oh for the sacrifices we make, the rationing of all the tea time treats we used to look forward to with great anticipation and the simple pleasures of the palate we used to take for granted. Oh yes and don't forget to ban those moreish chocolates, the prettily wrapped sweets that surrounded our childhood.

Of course it's the beginning of a New Year and we're all entitled to be delusional or naturally optimistic. Of course we seek self improvement, betterment, a cleaner bill of health and a dedication to the cause of looking like Mr or Mrs Universe. Realistically though it may be time to get on with the job of booking that dream summer holiday, climbing Mount Everest, swimming the Atlantic, bungee jumping from the highest bridge in the world, completing 100 marathons by June and then travelling the world in double quick time.

But why oh why do we make these grandiose plans in the depths of a wintry January when it would be much simpler to take one step at a time. The department stores are still holding their winter sales, you probably need those practical pullovers, warm as toast thick coats while not forgetting a cabinet of medical potions and tablets to keep colds and coughs at bay. Besides, the weather forecasters will shortly be delivering those gloomy prognoses of freezing winds, buckets of snow, interminable periods of cold and rain, icy pavements, unwelcome slush on the ground and more ice on the car windscreen wipers. The New Year hey! What a winter wonderland! There can be nothing to match it.