January

....sick and tired you've been hanging on me.

The wettest month since records began apparently, that's the problem with records they are always being broken and it's no use wandering around thinking 'blimey May 1789 was a wet one' because somebody will pop up and tell you that 2013 was the second wettest year on record (well since records began, the venerable Bede was more bothered about the sturm und drang of the ecclesiastical and political worlds than the meteorological one).

It is of course also the month when anybody required to complete a Self Assessment Tax Return must ensure that their 2013 return is filed (to avoid a £100 fine) and that they must also pay the balance of their 2012-13 income tax and an amount of account of their 2013-14 liability. What has become noticeable over recent years is that the number of returns that have been filed late across the country is on the decline, this is mainly due to the filing penalties introduced by HMRC in 2012. Prior to that date you would be fined £100 for late filing only if there was a tax liability now you can be fined regardless of whether or not you actually have any tax to pay. Of course those who are both lazy and clever can file their returns to make the deadline and later withdraw it and file an amended return without any consequences other than the prospect of some interest on the late payment of tax.

It's been a manic month in the office hence the lack of blogging and also because even when faced with the opportunity to blog there has been little to fire my imagination out there in the bigger world. January really has been a grey, wet and windy month and given that February is generally even wetter, greyer and more miserable I can't see too many fun times ahead.

It's usually that month when you want to get out in the garden, rain permitting, and try and organise things as the ground warms up but the fences are still down from the Christmas storms and even the frogs are absent so far which must be some sort of record in previous years the sound of males calling for a mate has begun half way through the month.

Roll on February..............................