Nothing doing

Posting from Gloomsville. Misery loves company, so I'm being companionable....

I don't know about you, but this is the deadest time for me; nothing, but nothing, is happening. Life is monotonous. If I had hibernated, I couldn't have chosen a worse time to emerge from my pile of leaves, and even crocuses in huge drifts in the Dene aren't uplifting for long.

It's not just dull; it's depressing. All the news is bad; the Coalition Government of Doom and Despair has nothing promising to tell us. The television is just as bad - apart from Masterchef, my weekly tonic - and even that studenty-looking professor's riveting programme about the Universe became unbearably gloomy as the death of stars was described in lingering detail. Even if it is gazillions of centuries away, the prospect of the slow, inevitable death of our universe is deeply dispiriting. Flossie agrees.

I'm tired, and bored, winter-grey and overweight. I tried a low-fat diet programme, one which has the pounds falling off in barrowloads from people who eat chips, and pies, and pizza. Nothing happened. Oh, not quite true: my hands became papery-dry, crackling wickedly if I rubbed them together; I could have struck sparks from them. Not a pound was lost, though. I've given up dieting for Lent.

Some people came to look at the house the other day, but I knew before they did (on opening the front door to them, in fact) that it wouldn't be for them - aspiring 30-somethings, expensive glossy black car, perfectly made-up young woman with designer-clad baby, who would have stuck out a mile in our somewhat unpolished Bacteria Gardens.

The appalling mud is lessening in the parks, after several days without rain, but the river lures a certain someone in, searching for sticks caught in the banks, and she comes home as muddy as ever, and smelling rather Ouseburny, i.e. drainy.

She has taken to looking out of windows, leaving large nose marks. The sun has shone, revealing that my eco-conscious window-cleaning with white vinegar hasn't been altogether successful; streaks and nose-dabs are everywhere.

I got out some elderly knitting, and promptly made a major error that I didn't notice fast enough to remedy. I've stuffed it back in the basket again, in case Sandra, chief knitting-rescuer, sees it and sighs in despair. It's only a beginner's pattern, too.

And my right index finger, the one that got trapped in the front door years ago, and has developed a knobble on the first knuckle, is so painful..... I know I'm ageing when not only do I have a knobbly knuckle, but I can tell myself that I "shouldn't bother the doctor".

Thought: If I were a pet, my owner would probably be wondering if it was time to have me put to sleep.

....Now there's a galvanising thought! Begone, gloom, doom, self-pity and a tendency to slump on the sofa and watch deeply-depressing rolling news. Out into the fresh air! Brisk walking, a brisk talking-to (telling yourself off can be quite helpful, and allows you to say painfully-true things that you'd never forgive your friends for uttering), and a brisk stiff-upper-lip attitude might be just what's needed to get through these last days of winter and into Spring. It has to get better, doesn't it?

And thank goodness for daffodils, and that very loud blackbird who likes to get a start on the dawn chorus at 3.30 every morning; a bit too early, but oh, the experimental trills and whistles, the joyousness in every note!

I feel better already. Off to finish off the baking for this afternoon's visitors. And to wipe nose marks off the windows.