Standard January sky

Isn't January just the worst month? It's long and nothingy and it promises everything yet delivers nothing. Nobody has any money because they spent it all on food and other people at Christmas. (Yes, I grow increasingly Scrooge-like with every passing December.) Then there are the resolutions. Everybody starts a January full of plans to do this, do that, lose weight, get fit, give up this, or take up that, but by the middle of the month most people are all "Ah yeah, I remember now, shiny new years are pretty much like all the other years" and most of their plans dwindle away. Until next year. This is why I don't make resolutions. I never keep them so why make them, break them and therefore disappoint myself? If you want to do something, don't be worrying about the date – just do it.

My main issue with January is the sky, though. It doesn't do anything. Right now, the sky here is just shades of pale grey. Hang on, I'll show you...

See? No glimmer of sun, no actual moody clouds, no rain, no nothing. Just dismal, light grey blandness. Standard January sky. I spend a lot of my day looking out of my shed window at the sky, while waiting for glass to melt or for beads to round up, and looking out at that particular flavour of sky is depressing. I'd rather it rained than do nothing; at least if it's raining it's actually doing something.

Standard January sky is a nightmare for taking bead photos. I've not used an actual 'proper' camera for taking bead pictures for about eighteen months now. I use my iPhone. It's less faff – no cables, no memory card, no batteries – but I can't use it with a daylight lamp as it makes the camera 'strobe', so I rely on daylight for bead photography. It's great when it's a nice day but the nothingy January sky is an arse-pain for taking nice bead photos.

I had a right old struggle this morning taking pictures of the 'Garnet & Grey' beads above and at the top of this post. The beads are a rich, deep garnet red in real life but no matter where I went to take their photo – the lounge window sill, outside on the garden table, down on the lounge floor next to the back door – I couldn't capture their true richness and niceness. Thanks, standard January sky, you big pillock! Ah well, I just hope the buyer of them does that "They're so much nicer in real life" thing.