Sure is.   Maybe it`s the time of the year or maybe, as I get older, the events of the year become less and less appealing.  Maybe it`s just me but as darkness descends in late afternoon and the first frosts of winter arrive on cold easterly winds I find myself looking at what is in store for us over the next few weeks and months.

And what a depressing prospect it is.  To get arguably the most painful issue out of the way and done with first, I have so far received no response to my appeal on the village web page for help from a local psychoanalyst to provide some much needed counselling following the Saints embarrassing drubbing at the hands of Leicester City last Friday.  It didn`t get any better last night as they went down to a 3-1  Cup defeat away at Manchester City and they now face the prospect of yet another morale crushing encounter at the Etihad in a league match this coming Saturday.   Next week I might reach crisis point.

And before us lies a series of events, some trivial, some downright ridiculous, others simply irksome -  I leave you to decide which is which..  They begin tomorrow night with the imported nonsense of Halloween when kids roam the streets, knock on doors and demand to be given treats or else.  Then comes Bonfire Night, celebrating the failed attempt to blow up Parliament about 400 years ago (it would make more sense to celebrate a successful attempt to blow up Parliament?)  Trouble is, with all the banging and crashing, out faithful Golden retriever will probably go bonkers and we will have yet another disturbed night.

Then the prospect of yet another General Election in early December.  I don`t know about you but I am heartily tired of politics and especially the politicians who have behaved quite abominably over the past three and a bit years in their dismal failure to carry out the `instruction` they were given by the majority of electors to sensibly arrange an orderly departure from the oppressive clutches of the European Union.   The General Election campaign got off the ground this morning and already I am tired of hearing yet more lies disguised as party manifestos and spending pledges.

After that you would think that Christmas would come as light relief but sadly it is nowadays little more than another excuse for a commercial bonanza which has lost all sense of the true meaning of Christmas which, as Bart Simpson recalled, is when we all come together to celebrate Santa`s birthday.  Ho ho ho !!

And then it`s New Year`s Day and yet more banging, crashing and Retriever meltdown.

You can tell I`ve not had a good time lately - a streaming cold and hacking cough (aka man `flu,) four visits to the dentist in the last couple of weeks, a visit to the optician to get a prescription for new glasses following cataract operations and the onset of my Seasonal Affective Disorder (SADness.)

But I must pull myself together, count my blessings, put on a brave face with a stiff upper lip and face the coming period with more optimism and hope.  It would help if England win the Rugby World Cup on Saturday and the Saints manage to turn their current slough of despond into the sunny uplands of Premier League survival but maybe that is asking just too much of a troublesome world.

Have a nice day!

....and I genuinely hope that 2019 is a kind and good year for you, your family and friends.   

2018 was an `iffy` year for us.  We lost our much loved golden retriever Barney early in the year but we now have the latest in our long line of retrievers in the form of Dudley who is now eight months old and whilst still learning the trade seems to be coming along nicely.

While the world seems intent on seeing in the new year with a cacophony of fireworks, sensitive souls like Dudley just can`t understand why there are so many menacingly loud crashes, bangs and wallops so close to home.   I suspect we will have a late night nursing him through the celebratory din.  But, hey-ho it is new year after all and I guess, like Christmas, it will come and it will go like all the others.

The advent of Dudley meant that our holiday jaunts were restricted to just two in the year - one in April to Padstow not long after we had lost Barney, so it was not the same walking the Cornish cliffs without his company.  The second was to the New Forest in June, at the end of which we picked Dudley up from the breeder and brought him home.  

Get tonight over with and we can start again with a new year which, all being well, will bring my 80th birthday and no doubt another anxious, stressful time as the Saints, true to form, battle once more against relegation.   But there is summer to look forward to - long, warm sunny days, the cricket world cup and hopefully the occasional visit to Canterbury to see how Kent fare in the first division of the county championship. Simple pleasures are often the best ones.

All good wishes for 2019.  See you next year. Possibly.

SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER..

It`s really not too surprising that I suffer from S.A.D. which seems to have become more acute as the years have rolled by.   Maybe there`s a direct correlation between anno domini and one`s degree of bewilderment but I have just about settled back unto `life` after an enjoyable if fleeting summer, only to be confronted by the almost terrifying prospect of what awaits me in the coming weeks.

First up is Halloween, yet another pointless import from America when all reason seems to go out of the window.   My doorbell gets rung, Barney barks and cowers in his corner, I open the door and pretend to be scared, demands are made and threats issued as I`m given a choice between trick or treat. It`s a bit like demanding with menaces. My immediate response is to say `I`ll have the treat, please,` whereupon the puzzled expression on angelic faces softens my curmudgeonly heart and I hand out the bowl of goodies I had hoped to enjoy later on.

Then Bonfire Night.  And that`s serious, especially if, like us, you have a paranoid schizophrenic Golden Retriever with a sensitive nature and a penchant for undisturbed sleep.   It`s a silly thing, of course, `celebrating` a failed attempt to blow up Parliament hundreds of years ago.  Had the attempt been successful then perhaps it might have provided some legitimacy for the  `celebration.`  But it`s very British, of course, to organise a celebration for something so deeply flawed.

And then Christmas - the season of goodwill - when like lemmings on the cliff we all fall for the annual extravaganza of celebrating Santa`s birthday.  And the New Year won`t be much better - more fireworks, more canine cowering in the corner - and the whole silly season conducted in the darkest, coldest, most miserable time of the year.

And just when you think things couldn`t get any sillier, along comes the ultimate silliness that is the Turner Prize.  There are four nominees this year - a set of chairs draped with fur coats;  a set of TV monitors showing interviews with conspiracy theorists;  a showroom of household items;  and a bevy of six warbling opera singers.   Quite apart from the sainted JMW spinning in his grave at this prospect, it surely is no coincidence that admission to the Glasgow exhibition is free to anyone daft enough to be interested.

And people wonder why I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder.......... 

OUT WITH THE NEW.....

It`s taken a day or two for me to come to terms with the new year. Now, I know I`m getting old and increasingly grumpy but one thing I`ve never really come to terms with is this mania for celebrating the turn of the year.

It could be because I`m not Scottish....or it could be because I just know that the new year will arrive on cue come what may. It is, after all, just another turn of events and one which has only been made at all significant by its inclusion in the man made calendar.

So, on new year`s eve, I go to bed as usual, get off to sleep as usual only to woken up at the midnight hour by a cacophany of noise as my neighbours start letting off fireworks. Not just any old fireworks either - these seem to be armour-piercing, weapons grade fireworks which go on and on for ages. It`s almost as if they have a malevolent determination to keep me awake.

The good news is that Henry doesn`t seem to mind too much, but then very little seems to disturb him. There are times, New Year`s Eve being one of them, when I`m convinced that our canine friends are much more `knowing` than we can ever be.