Winter is the best time to have a birthday. Romance is for the spring ...

My relationship with my nearly new year birth date resembles an initially challenging but ultimately happy arranged marriage.

Why did I hate my new year birthday? To be fair, for a long time the dice were loaded against me. By Boxing Day my choir-school-head father had been on duty, day and night, from the beginning of September, up to and including Christmas Day. Like many who live on the job, he could only relax by going away and getting as far away from it as possible.

Thus, we were never at ours by new year, and I was in my thirties before I experienced a birthday at home – let alone a birthday party, which I don’t recall ever having as a child.

The close proximity of Christmas to birthday seemed to somehow make both feel less generous. Having two brothers didn’t help. I was once given a left-handed glove for Christmas and the right-hand one for my birthday; worse, my other brother explained, after I’d already opened and played it, that only the first side of the LP was his Christmas present and the second side was my birthday gift.

So my expectations were set pretty low.

Then one dark evening at the beginning of the year, in my late-thirties, one of our children took me out for a drink. So little notice had I learnt to take of my birthday that I barely realised it was. We stayed out just long enough for our return to be punctuated by dozens of friends and neighbours jumping out from behind party poppers and balloons. My first ever birthday party: a glorious surprise!

It broke the curse.

Now I embrace my birthday with such gusto and enthusiasm that, alas, I fear surprises are a thing of the past. I start inviting friends months beforehand and can barely remember why I ever disliked a midwinter birthday.

Firewood has been split and piled for Christmas; the house is festooned with greenery; the tree still twinkles with crystal, candles and pinecones. Most important, official festivities are receding, but no one is quite ready to relinquish the holiday completely.

Our forebears knew what they were doing, celebrating for a full 12 Days, through the darkest of winter and into early January, when the lengthening days become noticeable. My birthday falls just before Epiphany, clashing with neither Christmas nor New Year, but brightening that sluggish time when we’re wondering how to justify one last bash before the serious business of earning a living resumes.

Goose and turkey are a jaded memory, but there is still plenty of Stilton, nuts and dates. Resolutions have been made but not truly implemented. Oysters are in season, as is venison and other game. As a bonus, prices are typically reduced.

So here’s some advice. If you’re thinking of planning a family, consider the ancient wisdom of nature. My brother worked as a gardener in a Cambridge college; he also bred budgerigars and was acutely observant of the world around him. He would come home amused to find that the amorous behaviour in the branches of the trees was being echoed in the lawns and gardens.

St Valentine’s Day traditionally heralded pairing-off season, not just for birds and bees but also students: as the days (and nights) grew warmer, animals and humans alike became more ardent.

For many species, this ensures their young are born when the weather is kindest and survival likeliest. But for us, romance in spring means birth in midwinter – just when everyone needs cheering up, and a birthday celebration is the best thing we could possibly have to lift the spirits.