This is, after all, the time of so many exciting beginnings in a way that January never is.

Many of you will have grandchildren starting school or university. It’s also the season when we consider starting a course of some kind, or joining a class, club, choir or community theatre.

And this is good, because no matter how gregarious and active we are in the spring and summer, it’s all too easy for us to do less in autumn and winter and become more solitary – and indeed lonely.

Now, I’m not saying that being alone and being lonely are the same thing. Often, we enjoy space and time to ourselves and do lots of amazing things with it. But in the dark, dank months of the year, it’s not unusual for our aloneness to increase, and then to morph into loneliness remarkably quickly.

No one wants to admit to being lonely. But trust me, vast number of adults are, and this should be avoided at all costs, because experts claim loneliness is as bad for us as smoking, obesity and inactivity. They also say that social isolation makes us more prone to premature death from all causes, and that being lonely often causes depression, and increases........

© Eastern Daily Press