The ‘ber’ months

 

The ‘ber’ months

I don’t live under a rock, but the expression, ‘the ber months’ is new to me. Until a couple of weeks ago, I had never heard it, but now it’s cropping up everywhere, and today it appeared on the front cover of our community magazine, Crowthorne Eye.

Though the cover adjures readers to ‘Enjoy the ‘Ber’ months, there is nothing inside to encourage that, apart from one sentence that says, ‘. . . it won’t be long before our beautiful County turns golden, the best time of year to enjoy the outdoors with so many woodland walks on our doorstep.’  

It is true that we are blessed with acres of woodland, and surprising that more people don’t take advantage of them. It’s still commonplace to take long walks in this busy county without seeing another soul.

However, I started thinking about other conceivable aggregations of months, but there is only one, the ‘ry’ months of January and February. If the ‘ber’ months conjure up images of golden leaves and fiery sunsets, the ‘ry’ season, at least in the northern hemisphere, promises, or threatens, biting winds, driving rain, ice, frost, snow, and fog. There can be bright days, with thin sunshine in an arctic blue sky, but they are overwhelmed by the dark hours and the gloom, and the very real desire to reach home, close the curtains and soak up comforting warmth.

We try to cheer each other up by saying, ‘February is a short month,’ but really we’re fooling ourselves. It would be more accurate to define it as ‘shorter.’ For three out of every four years, February has twenty-eight days, but in a leap year, it has twenty-nine. So, it’s two or three days shorter, depending on which month it’s being compared to. That’s the equivalent of a weekend, even a long weekend, or possibly half a working week, so not to be sneezed at. It does not, however, compensate for the sheer bone-chilling, soul-sapping misery of February.

January enjoys the afterglow of the ‘festive season,’ even when the bills come in, and there may be momentary regrets about the overindulgence that was enjoyed. February has nothing to recommend it. The children contract every indisposition known to mankind and generously pass them on to their nearest and dearest. More than one child in the family means there will be a recurring circus of infection.

If a doctor’s appointment is required, and you are actually able to meet a medical professional face to face, you will discover that they fall victim to even more germs than the average family. You leave the surgery feeling very sorry that you’ve troubled such an obviously unwell adult with your problems.

All bad things come to an end. The ‘ry’ months are soon forgotten in the bold and blustery month of March, when signs of spring are all around . . . and so the year progresses.