Currently beset by decision paralysis at every turn. What to do as I wait for work to really begin? How to earn a living in the Now of feckin’ AI? Should I prep like there’s no tomorrow given the woeful world? Is my still sore hip ever going to get better? What am I going to knit next? Can I work my way through the freezer and avoid wasting any of my carefully hoarded relics of meals past? Is our house no longer a home but a liability? Should I, will I, ought I?

Aaaargh.

Also nursing a very elderly guinea pig ( the twice widowed Pippin, who has had the great misfortune to be bereaved of two beloved hutch bros) which sounds very endearing – visions of small critter tucked up in tiny bed with bonsai bowl of grapes by his side. The reality is much more prosaic and hella hard work. Syringe feeding to keep his tummy motile, wiping of eyes, chins and nethers with different wiper for each. Administration of many meds. And the fretting over his threatened demise. The long dark teatimes of the soul. The lying churning in the dark.

Ugh. Such times, my dears. So – what am I doing to stop myself from circling the drain?

One small action every day – I compile one small heap of no-longer-for-me things to take to the charity shop.

I write a diary and try to find three things to celebrate at the conclusion of each entry. Small, small things. We are not talking Carnegie Hall moments.

Some physical activity on top of the endless fucking physiotherapy stuff that I have to do every day. so – a walk, a walk/run, yoga or – urrrgh, a forty minute gruesomeness at the local council-run gym.

Making something – whether it’s a cake or a few rows of something I’m heartily bored with, or spinning ( Turkish spindle) several metres of lumpy bumpy yarn, or maybe, if I’m feeling vaguely confident, banging out a cartoon( see below)

Putting down my little black rectangle of doom and reading a book, a magazine, a newspaper. Anything that doesn’t give me that fluttery feeling of panic which is, entre nous, totally harshing what remaining shreds of mellow I have been clinging to of late. Oh, you too? You’re fluttery of tummy and starey of eyeball? The word stressed doesn’t really do justice to the existential dread swilling around in the body politic atm.

Times are TOUGH. Be kind to yourselves. Remember, there are more of us than there are of these pesky, ghastly, morally bankrupt billionaires. We have the power.