Hello everybody.
I am feeling entirely cheerful, although regret to announce that I am also mildly drunk..
The cheerful bit is because I have got the most perfect excuse to slope off without bothering to write anything on these pages but still leave you with an elegant and magnificent read.
More about that shortly.
We have spent the day visiting Asda and purchasing plumbing fittings. This has not been the stuff of deathless prose. However we met up with Elspeth and John this evening, for the purpose of eating curry and introducing them to the new poopy, which accounts for my current misfortunate state of intoxication.
Elspeth says that the poopy’s photographs do not do it justice and that it is considerably uglier than it looks on the screen. I regret to say that this is very much the case, but we have hopes that it will improve with age.
She also told me, and I am mentioning it here because I was so completely astounded that I thought I ought to draw it to your attention as well, that there is a television show currently being screened which is a bit like Blind Date. The difference, presumably the bit called the USP, is that it only shows contestants from the waist down.
They are undressed.
I can scarcely credit that this is true, but she assured me that it was. I can see this might be plausible if your face was not revealed in the end. If I was to demean myself sufficiently to go on Blind Date then I would very much rather be visible from the waist down only, which would leave me with a jolly good possibility of denial. The possibility of being screened on television from the waist downwards wearing nothing but (Elspeth said) make-up, and then having the rest of you filmed as well so that people would know who you were seems to me to be beyond horror.
What would you say in the Post Office? Or at Parents’ Evening at school?
The awfulness of such a claim to fame is the sort of thing that you might have nightmares about, but it is a real, true thing.
The world is mental.
I return now to my shirk of the day.
The morning started truly brilliantly, with an email from Oliver which told us that he had been awarded a hundred percent mark for his English creative writing assignment. He sent it to us, and I was so impressed that I have copied and pasted it here, instead of bothering to write any more diary.
I can go to bed instead now.
Here is the piece that Oliver wrote.
Thank you and goodnight.
Celebrate the good things in life!
An article on how to free yourself from your own troubles.
We’ve all been there, down on our luck, struggling in the mud. The fog of the future heavily bore bearing down upon us. Sometimes, the pressures of life all seem to have caught up and have become far too much to handle and we forget just how far we have come along in this epic journey of life.
Does this situation seem similar to you? If so, then this article is probably for you.
In this article I will be your guide, your rescuer even, out of this treacherous situation.
To start with we need to look back on your past as no matter how small we all have our own little battles and victories. Whether it be through struggling with socialising especially after several morale-breaking lockdowns. Or through struggling financially. Looking back brings everything into perspective and in doing so gives you a line of security in this bleak situation. Like a safety tether when doing a space walk.
How do I know this will work? Because I and several of my friends have been in this very situation before and have gotten out just fine with the following words of advice.
When looking back we can fall into the trap of demeaning ourselves by only looking back upon our failures. While it is important to understand and learn from our mistakes, now is not the time. We must look back and cherish our victories, having small conversations with others, or passing difficult exams in your younger years, or by getting your first job, or your first partner, everything that brought accomplishment in life should be looked back upon and celebrated.
Now that you have been grounded and secured we can now start eliminating your problems one by one. Currently in the fog of the future there are creatures that lurk, these being your problems. To defeat such monsters of the shadows, one must identify, break down and single out. By identifying your issues and what is bothering you they become much easier targets. Almost highlighting the creatures hiding in the shadowy fog.
Then comes the hardest part, in my opinion, you must choose the hardest problem -the most ugly and gruesome monster in the fog- and eliminate it. Because once the worst of the worst is over it’s all downhill from there. Now to prepare for this, I have heard it helps other people for them to take down smaller problems to help ground themselves. These can be as small as tidying your room / house / apartment. Or having a quick shower, or even getting enough or more sleep. Which then gives you the confidence that they can loudly exclaim “Yes I CAN do this!” for when they want to face their biggest problem.
Once the biggest problem has been defeated all of the others become far more miniscule in comparison, but eliminating them one at a time can help make the situation I had described earlier feel far less dire.
Now, in a worst case scenario, where all hope seems lost there is an ejector seat. This comes in the form of running away. Now matter how large or scary a problem is there is no problem so large that one cannot run away from it.
There is always an option to drop out of a class, switch a subject, change town, break up with a partner. There is nothing chaining you to the situation that you are in other than your own brain. Your brain is your lock and key to the trap that you have fallen into, it’s just up to you to work out how you are going to break yourself free.
Now, my amazing reader, if you have, in fact, read through the article and have taken in at least a little bit of the information I have given to you this will have been one success that you can now look back upon when dark and troubling times are ahead. Even if you don’t remember everything that was said, parts of the given advice will still be helpful.
So now, go forth and pull yourself out of the mud next time you are in a difficult situation, ground yourself into reality, slay the monsters of the fog, and break yourself out of your own cage constructed by your own mind.
