It’s the little things in life that make you smile

There are times when you can feel down; or feel sorry for yourself; or just feel angry about something you can do nothing about.

I’ve been through all three today and it took the smallest of incidents to cheer me up.

It was the delivery of . . .

Well let’s just wait a moment and consider why my day was going so badly.

I woke with a gut ache (no, not a stomach ache because it was lower down, in the area most people think of as the stomach).

It was not a raging, sharp pain – more of a dull ache.

The wday wasn’t going to let me off that lightly: I also had a pain across my lower back, it was almost as though I was wrapped in a girdle of pain.

Dull, aching, persistent pain.

Add in the tiredness of erratic, spasmodic sleep and it’s enough to bring anyone down and make them feel sorry for themselves.

It was not wind making me ache as there was no sign of movement up or down.

Even an hour or so sleep on the sofa didn’t help.

Meanwhile every bit of news I saw or heard was just making me more and more angry.

I can understand the lockdown – we went into the first one a week ahead of the Cabinet of Clowns ordering it. We actually started on my birthday, 16 March, 2020, when I hit 70.

Since then the way it has all been handled has often annoyed me. Not angered me – annoyed me.

When you are annoyed you can remain calm and consider what should be done.

I am not a health expert, then neither is Johnson or any of the C of C, but I do understand that if you are facing a pandemic of a virus which can kill almost as many as the Black Death or the Spanish ‘flu then you lock down everything as tight as you can.

You don’t just rely on a face mask, a six-foot gap, and regular washing of hands.

Boris Johnson seems to think that if he throws money to his pals, ignores the advice of health experts, and relies on a man who flouts every rule in the Covid19 handbook, then everything will be OK.

Despite this, and despite Starmer giving Johnson’s C of C an easy time, I still remained annoyed not angry.

Then, knowing two companies had created a vaccine and we might be on the last lap of a deadly race, I accepted that Christmas was not going to be a family affair.

Johnson needs to be loved, however, and decided, against the odds and against the health advice, that we should all have a day off for Christmas.

I am sure you know, as I do, that viruses don’t know about Christmas and Covid19 was certainly not going to take a day off for Christmas, New Year or any other holiday.

Even then I was only annoyed at Johnson and all the other idiots.

I did get really annoyed when Johnson’s decision to give us all of Christmas Day off resulted in a massive spike in the pandemic and an upsurge in Covid19 cases and deaths.

Following which he rushed into a new major lockdown – too little, too late – and I got angry.

By 7pm I was angry about something I could do nothing about; I was feeling very sorry for myself; and I was feeling down because of the pain (easing somewhat after the judicious use of a hot water bottle).

That was when the doorbell rang.

My son opened the door to see a delivery man standing by the gate and a package on the doorstep.

It was something I had ordered just after Christmas and for some unfathomable reason it really cheered me up.

Tomorrow I will probably still have a gut ache and a back ache; I will probably be less than my usually cheery self; and I will almost certainly be annoyed at least about the feckless behaviour of Johnson and his clowns.

I will have warm feet though.