Dry January is overkill - you can still be sensible with alcohol | Emma Kay

There are 7.9m Brits who withhold their wine urges and bottle up their beers in hopes of being healthier or simply to join in this increasingly popular annual tradition.

However, breaking away from Dry January as soon as possible with the smallest of excuses has become something of long-running joke. Whining witticisms poke fun at the inherent alcoholism of our nation… Oops we slipped and sipped! We teetered off the teetotal cliff! The beer brigade is back in town!

This superficial sober slant seems woefully misplaced. It takes place in one of the darker and drearier months of the year when the prospect of going to the pub is one of the few plausible actions at our disposal. An activity that we had been deprived of that we once took for granted. People can argue about it being a judicious January experience of great importance, but really, right now just doesn’t feel like the right time.

I’ve always wondered why we do not have Sober Summer instead? Dry January is akin to a PR stunt that does not really reflect or address the more sobering issues of underlying public health and alcohol intake. It is commendable and if you are doing it to make a positive change, then give yourself a cheer for turning over a new leaf. For those who tried and failed pretty quickly though, do not beat yourselves up.

If your Dry January quickly becomes a damp one, it doesn’t make you a failure. It doesn’t mean you have no self-control or have no aptitude to sticking to a goal.

Seeing people cheery and with a happy face after drinking (sensibly) is pleasing. Seeing them unwind and loosen their tightly wound spring makes me feel relaxed as well. It is nice to see people enjoying themselves and feeling normal again. Helping ourselves to a feel-good experience is, well, good. Heading with extra impetus to the bar because you are eager to socialise and see others is perfectly normal.

Drinking socially is an activity so many have missed for the last two years and do we want to miss out again? Certainly not, when our so called leaders were freely getting rosy cheeked at Number 10. We seek comfort in the people around us. The sobering sadness of drinking alone is not the same as drinking with friends and loved ones. Not by any measure.

We don’t need to be do-or-die to be dry. Being a little bit damp hurts nobody so long as you are being sensible.

If you’ve got a driveway, curb your kerbside parking

Is everyone as fed up as I am of the driveway dropouts? I’m talking about homeowners who have a sizeable and working driveway (mostly out of town of course) that has barely yielded to a tyre.

Yes, we are looking at you people who park in the road and avoid using your driveways, which can only be down to sheer laziness. You create traffic problems.

You create standstills and you cause problems, especially parking on a bend with a driveway clear of vehicles, leading to more irate drivers who must manoeuvre around your kerb parking.

More worryingly, the queues created from your curbing enthusiasm are dangerous little pockets for unseen pedestrians to vanish into.

With the snap of the finger, a child running from between parked cars can so easily change someone’s life forever. Clear up your act by clearing up the kerbs.

Plastic flowers

Normally I am not so pro-plastic and go out of my way to banish plastic straight to the recycling bin.

I feel like a failure if I throw away anything that can be recycled. However, this year I made an executive decision and have decided to forego using fresh flowers for my wedding and have plastic ones created instead.

Plastic flowers are also a blessing for those who are allergic to them, ensuring a stress-free and a sneeze-free wedding. I also have a strange but very vivid fear that their sizeable scent will attract a bumblebee!

The Covid quandary is also a very real consideration for my choice. Weddings have had to be cancelled with increasingly regularity, but fresh flowers do not heed cancellation dates and wither and wilt after a while. This way, money won’t be wasted and I will have a more permanent wedding bouquet.

A message from the editor, Mark Waldron.

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