It's October and the sky is full of rain - and that rain continues to fall, washing away the Ryder Cup, washing away the falling autumn leaves, washing away hope and making us all feel a little depressed I'm sure. It is as if the weather is setting the scene for what is to come this month, the announcement of the cuts by the coalition government.
Every one in the country has started explaining why it should not be them who has to lose out, the bankers, the unions, the rich, the poor, the private and the public all fighting to make a case to be spared - but the truth is we are all in this boat together, and the boat is called Titanic!
Some will survive after we hit the iceberg, some will freeze to death (not those of us with the foresight to install a multi-fuel burner) and some will make money selling the ship for scrap.
One of those hoping to make capital is the newly elected leader of the Labour Party - Ed Miliband. He and his newly formed shadow cabinet will have the job of scavenging the wreck, they are hoping for a feeding frenzy, like a shoal of piranhas, their little red teeth snapping away at the thrashing coalition survivors.
I can hear the message already - we told you what the Tories would do! You can't trust them, they will never change!
And it is in this message that we see the truth about ALL politicians of ALL colours - they are opportunistic and deceitful.
This is what really grips my grapes about Miliband and his supporters - they allowed the iceberg to form, they helped steer the ship towards it and now it is someone else who is to blame. Miliband wants to distance himself from the past by saying, we have changed but then he says change in others is not possible.
If it was good we created it, if it is bad it was nothing to do with us.
You will never change, we will always change.
They are all untrustworthy and yet they are in charge - man the life boats.
So, with all this October misery, it falls to me now to bring a smile to your little faces - let me tell you about a little old lady I saw in Tesco (you knew Tesco had to appear eventually) just this very weekend.
I had gone to fill my prescription and as the pharmacy in Tesco was the nearest to the doctor I strolled in and deposited my request with the white coated pharmacy assistant. The pharmacist was busy shuffling his pills and potions. The very efficient lady said "that will be 15 minutes - do you have any shopping to do?" I replied " Of course not dear lady, this is Chesterfield Rd Tesco and they consider a carrot as a luxury item. I will be visiting Oak Tree Lane later".
She nodded, recognising my status, bobbed out a little curtsy and then handed the paperwork to Dilip whilst I waited patiently, trying not to interact with any of the smelly oiks wandering around in track suit bottoms and slippers.
I now had fifteen minutes of joy watching the lower classes fight over the 'reduced' oven chips and burgers. I also saw several people collect their prescriptions, mostly methadone I think, and of course there were the ladies who had given birth to children (normally referred to as mothers but these ladies did not qualify for that title). These ladies just wanted large bottles of Calpol to keep the poor little mites drugged up thereby allowing them to watch Jeremy Kyle in peace, dreaming of the day they could appear themselves.
This human parade of the lower strata of Mansfield life continued and then 'she' appeared. About 5ft tall, in a blue fleece and very shiny black trousers. Her grey hair neatly coiffed into a similar style to the Queen, her face grey and set like granite, pushing her trolly with determination through anyone who got in her way. She was old, so she obviously ignored the queue in front of her, walked up to the counter and started speaking at the assistant. Let me try and recapture the eloquence of her conversation - now what was it, oh yes...PEN!
Her little hand shot out towards the assistant who froze just for an instance - but that pause gave the old lady time to click her fingers and her little hand vibrated as if she was casting some magical spell and it worked because a pen appeared in her hand!
She scribbled on the prescription and handed it over, pocketing the pen of course, the assistant looked at the form and then smiled (big mistake) before saying "that will be 15 minutes - do you...." but she was cut of by the shriek "FIFTEEN MINUTES!"
The whole shop froze, we all held our breath expecting the old lady to lean across the counter and suck the life out of the assistant like some geriatric alien life force drinking vampire.
She then looked the assistant squarely in the eye and said the words that will stay with me for the rest of my life - "I'll be back!" She then opened her large handbag, pulled out some dark glasses, put them one and taking her trolly she glided away from the counter.
Dilip came forward with my pills and handed them over not before checking my address, when he realised that I live in a very nice part of town and he could see that I was a decent sort, the look on his face changed - he smiled at me and asked if I could help him escape. It turned out that he had previously been on missionary work, living in the deepest darkest most deprived slums in Africa - and he wanted to go back because the quality of life was better there than in Tesco.
I left poor Dilip sobbing into his counter, I made my own escape back out into the watery light of Mansfield, drove back to my nice middle class life, threw another log on the fire and turned on the telly to watch Strictly and The X Factor.
And now, as I write this message of hope I can still hear the rain beating a rhythm on the conservatory roof - the message it sounds is clear - don't worry old chap, at least you have a conservatory.
Have a nice day, try and keep dry and when the iceberg hits, cling onto a politician - they are bound to survive.
