HOPE you all had a good Christmas. Ours has been a little dominated by a missing dog – not ours, a little black and white one called Barney that went missing knocking on for three weeks ago now and quite a few of us have been worried sick about him.

He seems to be moonlighting from Poggy to Huddersfield Road area and though there have been a number of sightings, he has remained elusive to catch so on the off chance you see this little whiskery chap – could you find me on Facebook and let me know and I can spread the word.

A wonderful lady called Erika has been flying a drone trying to find him, the OH, among others, has been going out at all times of day and night with his pal Danny.

Even Christmas morning when – you won’t believe it – they found another little stray who they took to Vets for Pets to find he was chipped and the owner, who didn’t even know he was missing, came down to collect him, though I was making our front room available for what I thought would be an extra guest for dinner.

Not a thanks or kiss my ar*e for finding him from her mind so cheers for that. But the vets were so helpful.

I’ve been praying to St Anthony who usually comes up trumps and will continue to because he was spotted just a couple of days ago again. Please let’s get him home.

January can be a bummer of a month, depressing and loooong, especially if you are doing a dry January. Don’t do it – people have bought you all those bottles to be enjoyed.

Do a dry Feb – it’s got less days in it. January is so boring one of the top ten facts about it is that you can only find eight.

But the countdown to Easter has started because Creme Eggs are already in the shops. We get two extra minutes sunlight every day.

I always buy a hyacinth for the windowsill to perk me up, reminds me of Agnes Road Infant School and the flower competition.

January is named after the two-faced Roman god Janus, who had one looking back into the old year and one forward into the new one. Not to be confused with his brother ‘Hugh Janus’ who is the god of Christmas overindulgence.

I can’t stand New Year, I’m glad when it’s over. There always seems too much pressure to be better and change and you feel a failure for the rest of the year when, by five past midnight you’ve broken your ‘I will swear less, I will drink less, I will argue less’ vows.

Here’s my advice: don’t do new year resolutions, instead write down a list of what you would like the Cosmos to deliver to you, hide it and then next year have a look and see how far you’ve got.

Much less depressing. And don’t be tempted to sign up for the gym paying a year’s subscription in advance to ‘force’ yourself to do it, because you won’t go and the only exercise you’ll get is beating yourself up.

Do it month by month so you can cancel it if you have to. Maybe we should all stress less, rush less and back away from the keyboard if someone annoys us – it’ll be kind on our hearts.

Life should be about counting our blessings and enjoying the gift of breathing.

Remember, every day brings us closer to March and spring and sunshine.

Hope that’s cheered you up. Happy New Year to those who deserve it!