January

I guess I’m fond of January because it is when I celebrate my birthday… that sounds as if my birthday is at another time of the year, but I choose to celebrate it in the first month of the year; well, unlike the Queen who has two birthdays, an official and an actual birthday, I just have one, in January.

I didn’t realise that originally march was the first month of the year, but about two and a half thousand years ago it was changed to January… named aft Janus, the Roman god of doors and gates. Although January was then adopted as the first month, the new year was sometimes celebrated at different times, December 25th for example – perhaps it make sense that a New Year should start on Christmas Day; it doesn’t seem to make quite as much sense for the New Year to start on March 25th, but apparently it did a some time in the Middle Ages.

The word January is from the Latin, the Saxons called it Wolfmonth… I like it! In Dark Age France it was called the Wintermonth, but after the French Revolution, when all the months were renamed and the year started in September, January was covered by two months, Nivôse and Pluviôse – snowy month and rainy month… my birthday would have fallen in snowy month.

I know most people don’t, but I like January!