Tobogan / 2nd week 2018

Today, Monday the fifteenth of January, the third Monday in the year, is, unofficially, the most depressing day of the year. It’s become known as Blue Monday. Christmas and the New Year celebrations are but a distant memory; the decorations are down; the Christmas market has packed up and left. It’s cold and it’s dull and it’s grey. What’s more, we spent all our money on Christmas presents, booze and fireworks, and are now waiting impatiently for our next pay packet. We’ve given up drinking; we’ve given up smoking; we’ve promised ourselves to exercise regularly. Now we’ve realised this is reality. Spring and Easter are the light at the end of a very long tunnel, and winter hasn’t even started properly yet.

I can also announce that last week, the second week of 2018, was literally the most boring week ever, at least for the people of NAR. Nothing happened. Well, not much happened. I know this because I only got one email for toboggan, and no photographs. So thank you Mr Jiří Špalek. OnMonday we welcomed in the New Year at NAR in the traditional way, with a glass of bubbly (or not, for those of us who have forsaken the demon drink) while Mr Kaplan said a few words. I have no photograph of this event, but as most of you were there, you can picture it in your mind’s eye. Tom and Jirka went to the pub in the evening – and that’s as exciting as it gets this week! On Tuesday nothing happened. On Wednesday nothing happened. On Thursday nothing happened. On Friday something might have happened, but I don’t know because I wasn’t here. I know that our Zlín student cadre were busy doing their mid-term exams, so I hope they were all successful. Oh, and of course there were the Czech Presidential elections, so I hope you all exercised your democratic right to vote. What about the weekend? As befits the weekend before the most depressing day of the year, nothing happened, except Jirka went to the theatre with his wife for her birthday and to the cinema with his wife and kids. As for me, I ran up Lysa hora on Sunday morning, but as I do this every weekend this is nothing unusual. However, I can report that when I got to the top of the mountain, above the clouds, the sky was blue and life didn’t seem so depressing after all :-). MJC