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Christmas, the New Year and the holiday season are over. The Christmas tree (I'm calling it what I've known it to be all my life, "holiday tree" indeed) is put away and in its place in the corner, the deck chair is back, facing the window. Maybe this is wishful thinking also that the monsoon will go away and the sunshine will come back.

Is it just me? Every year, for the past two or three years already, I put away the Christmas stuff only to find that I've forgotten about an ornament on the shelf or door or somewhere and it's too troublesome to untie the dust bag (well, garbage bag really) that all the Christmas stuff has been stowed away in. So I either leave those forgotten remnants out for the rest of the year till Christmas catches up again or put them away somewhere and hope to remember where when December rolls round.

My mother has drilled in me the necessity to remove the Christmas tree and decorations by Epiphany. Or it'll bring bad luck for the year, she says. I honestly don't know how much of this is true and how much of it was invented so you wouldn't still have the tree up and gathering dust in July.

It's the same with the superstition that you cannot sweep the floor during Chinese New Year or you would be sweeping away bad luck. I bet you a housemaid came up with this to get some time off.

With the holidays over, it's a dreary trudge back to work after so much time off. And it doesn't help that I'm going to have to do things I'm neither prepared nor equipped to do, and which take me out of the comfort zone of familiarity.

This morning, I made bread and whacked all the doubt and uncertainties out of my system. Tomorrow and the work it brings will be another day.

And there'll be more holidays next month with Chinese New Year. Ah, that's some consolation in living here. The Year of the Dog has brought us a new puppy, I wonder what the Year of the Pig will bring.