Did you do it? Did you get out of bed this morning and go to work? Did you wake up to the sound of your alarm splitting your head open at an ungodly hour and think for a moment that the world was ending? Are you ten hours into a New Year’s detox that has so far included the unlikely ingestion of a triple shot latte, peanut butter bagel and three milk chocolate digestives? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Today is, of course, one of the most depressing days of the year, (’Grumpy Monday’ in my house), being the first day back at work after the silly season. And to fall on a Monday, rather than a much more palatable Thursday or Friday… The injustice! The horror! The downright dirty tactics of the whole miserable business! It’s enough to make you want to call in sick and spend the day wallowing in your pyjamas and watching endless hours of telly and fighting with your family. As if you hadn’t been doing that non-stop for the past two weeks. (Which is probably the only thing that got you out of bed and out into the astonishing cold this morning: the thought of peace and quiet at work, after the last week at your in-laws’ house in god knows where, being asked every two minutes by your mother-in-law if you want a cup of tea, and being given the evil eye by a golden Labrador who you are pretty sure is planning to kill you in your sleep for the unjustifiable crime of sitting in their favourite spot on the settee while they wallow in the drafty hallway).

Try to look on the positive side of this dreary day: now that you are back in civilisation, you can order a cappuccino and get more than a lukewarm instant coffee! You can enjoy Wi-Fi! You can read a newspaper without being given suspicious looks! And you have at least another 11 months before beginning the interminable argument with your other half over where to spend Christmas! (One word: MEXICO).

So forget how much you charged to your Amex over the past few weeks, stop worrying about the drunken conversations you had with your co-workers at the Christmas party, and begin the process of repressing the memory of eating an entire banoffee pie on Boxing Day while drunk on port. ‘Tis the season for a new you! No, that headache is not a brain tumour, it’s just withdrawal from all the fun you’ve been having over the past two weeks. I have a feeling that 2010 is going to be a cracker of a year, so take today to be grumpy, but tomorrow, it’s on, baby!