See You Next Year, Old Friend.

I'm not sorry to bid a fond farewell to February...my least favourite month. Unlike Anna, my wife, I don't suffer from Seasonal affective disorder (SAD); she goes into decline in September and emerges from her torpor around May/June. If I say to her the days are getting shorter, a little muscle above her eye starts twitching.

February, the month when: our honey solidifies in its jar and the olive oil turns grainy because the kitchen is so cold ('boo'); all my geraniums that I thought might last the winter don't ('boo'); the Six Nations Rugby is on the telly ('hurrah' from me, 'boo' from Anna). One thing I'll say in February's favour...it's short ('hurrah').

With the incessant rain our garden turns into a quagmire; it's like walking on a giant lasagne, slipping and sliding about. Outside our front door it resembles the Somme and when hanging out the washing one is prone to trench foot.

As well as the interminable rain this year we've had this zombie fog which descends and you don't see the sky for a fortnight. Very oppressive. Driving down a country lane I'll have to slam on my brakes as farmer Barléymow suddenly appears in his agricultural vehicle, through the soup.

We have a lot of special occasions in February so it can be expensive: Anna's birthday, Valentine's Day, our wedding anniversary,...I spend most of February at the Intermarché in Airvault choosing from the selection of four cards on offer.

February was not a good month for our vehicles: not a day went by without some mysterious light appearing on the dashboard, informing us our car needed a service or the tyre pressure adjusting; we've been back and forth to the garage trying to fix a slow puncture numerous times; the battery on my van was on its last legs so we bought a charger...that didn't work. We decided to buy a new battery...went to the supermarket...they don't sell our type (because the van is stop/start you have to purchase a special one that costs the best part of three hundred euros!) and don't get me started on the skill and dexterity needed in the extraction of the old one from under the bonnet, I felt like a brain surgeon performing the operation, Anna was my assistant and would hold wires out the way, mop my brow and pass me the various tools required. The sense of achievement we got when I shoved the key in the ignition and heard the engine roar back into life. We danced like a couple of lunatics around the barn.

Just as we thought we were out of  woods with our vehicle problems, a French gentleman ran into the back of my van at a roundabout in Thouars and drove off without stopping. If you were in Thouars late February and saw a man weeping in the front of a Kangoo van, with a dent in the rear door, that was me.

But it wasn't all bad. Anna had an enjoyable whistle-stop trip to the UK to bond with our granddaughter whose parents were going to a James Blunt concert. Little Ari can sit up, has two teeth and a smile to die for. A constant stream of saliva flows from her mouth and she soils herself every ten minutes. On the final night of her stay my son made a celebratory meal to show his gratitude for the babysitting. Unfortunately, all three adults got food poisoning and spent the night throwing up, amongst other things.

After a sleepless night and with a very bad taste in her mouth Anna had to get several trains to Stansted (dragging her heavy suitcase), hang around the airport for an eternity, fly to Poitiers and drive to my loving arms whilst keeping her mouth shut and buttocks clenched. On arrival, she crawled through the front door, upstairs and into bed. My son has not stopped apologising for the incident and although the apology has been accepted the incident is referred to as 'the poisoning'.

But while she was away experiencing wind and rain, back in the Deux-Sévres a funny thing happened...the sun came out and I had the most glorious weekend outside. I did some gardening, sorted out the log shed and had the biggest bonfire in Christendom (which raged for several days); if you looked to the distant skies in late February and saw a plume of acrid smoke in the distance, no that wasn't the nuclear power plant in Poitiers, it was me getting primeval with my bonfire. I may not have had any eyebrows left but I did feel good that I had got rid of that great pile of garden detritus (a similar feeling of release comes over me when exiting our local déchetterie).

Our daughter came for a flying visit at the end of the month, so we spent a wonderful weekend out and about drinking coffee and boozing in various local establishments. People were coming out of their hibernation, daffodils flowering, there was a real sense that the Deux-Sévres was awakening from its winter slumber.