No.117, Monday, 6th. April 2026

I was feeling low yesterday and I hope that today I will be better. It no longer comes as a surprise to me that the smallest things can get you down, but the real intuition comes from the realisation that when things go wrong and you feel miserable as a result, it is the overpowering sense of helplessness that can lead to despair. Yesterday it was something as apparently silly and seemingly inconsequential as curtains and a curtain pole crashing to the ground, and it marked the end of a process that I hoped would improve my life ever so slightly. I went from being pleased with myself to tearful in seconds. The underlying cause of some of the misery I feel from time to time is simple: I am a private tenant and inherently feel insecure.

I love films and I am lucky to have a collection of discs and a good cinema system paid for before I retired. My dual-aspect living room – let’s call it a cinema room – has windows of unusual size. I have nets up at the windows on both walls, but no curtains. Consequently, all I can see on the TV screen, whether it is on or off, is a crystal clear reflection of my garden through French windows. The obvious answer would be to hang good quality daylight-blocking curtains, but because I am a tenant the cost is prohibitive: if the rent goes up and I have to move at short notice, what are the chances of them fitting in my next home?