Der Schweinehund.

Actually, its complete name in German is ‘Der innere Schweinehund’ (the inner swine-hound), which probably makes more sense in it’s less literal translation as ‘one’s weaker self’ or ‘the inner temptation’. And no, the picture above shows a long and very lazy cat. Not a hound.

There must be a connection between the Schweinehund and the fact that the days are so short at this time of the year and that January in north-western Europe is therefore dark, cold, windy and often pretty wet. The truth is that January feels much longer than any other month and that the temptation of hiding under a blanket and dreaming of tropical places while waiting for the spring to come is quite strong.

There is also a very strong temptation to ignore all those great resolutions we make in the first 5 minutes of the year, leading to what experts called ‘Blue Monday’ (the third Monday of the year). Statistically it’s supposed to be the gloomiest day of the year.

However, not all is bad! A quick survey within the team of coquine![design] has shown that so far no team member has given up a) any hopes that the winter will end one day and that spring will come, and b) any New Year’s resolutions made. We heard that especially the issue of ‘health and fitness’ is taken very seriously…

We believe that this must be down to the fact that the people behind coquine![design] are hopelessly optimistic, unbelievably persistent, constantly driven by their creativity, self-motivated and stubborn like old donkeys! Or maybe there’s even some sense of discipline! Whatever the reason, it just proves that the Schweinehund can be beaten and that January Blues will not stop us from achieving our goals!