Reasons why tomorrow I will be avoiding butterflies, washing up, Robert Carlyle and daytime TV

I learned some lessons today.  Here is some advice for you.  Learn from my mistakes, peoples.

1.  When you are sitting in the garden having your morning coffee in the sunshine, do not get complacent just because you are not alarmed by the sight of a bumble bee so big that it would substitute for a chicken on a Sunday and feed a family of four.  Do not pride yourself on thinking, 'Some might be afraid of bees.  Not me.  I know they will do me no harm.'  Why?  Because the bee may not bother you, no, but you are soon going to look very stupid indeed during your 'I am not afraid of nature' moment as an innocent yellow butterfly suddenly flutters into your face and makes you squeal and spill hot coffee on your legs.

'I'll just sit on this leaf here while she's congratulating herself on her  lack of bee-fear,
then I'll divebomb her face.  Mwa ha ha.'

2. When you are sitting in front of your laptop after your morning coffee thinking, 'I'll just catch up on a film, perhaps,' think hard about whether you need to be a) cheered up or b) hurled into the murky depths of lost hope for the world.  This is because watching a film in which the following things feature can only do the latter.  a) A man cares for his wheelchair bound, cirrhosis-riddled friend. b) It is the man's fault his friend is wheelchair bound, and most probably his fault that he is cirrhosis-riddled too. c) The film is set in a poverty-stricken Scottish town. d) A swearword which rhymes with duck makes up 90 per cent of the script, and is only occasionally interspersed with normal conversation.  e) Drunkenness and vomit are major plot points.

Robert Carlyle as the main character, thinking, 'What OTHER words ARE there in the English language?  Oh yes, there's
also BASTARD!'

3. When you are watching a depressing film, and decide to wash up the breakfast things half-way through just to give yourself a break from thoughts of hopelessness, be careful when washing the delicate glass bowls.  Subconsciously, you are probably now wishing you could just slit your wrists and get it all over with, and this is why you are doomed to hit the glass bowl against the tap, slice your finger in two places, and bleed all over the kitchen floor.   You will also have to watch the rest of the film while clutching a piece of bloody kitchen roll in order to stop the bleeding, and this is not going to add much to your enjoyment of the film, though it will indeed add a hint of irony.

A very inoffensive picture, and the result of Fran finding that typing 'cut finger' into
Google Images wasn't something to repeat too often

4. When you have finished watching a depressing film, during which you have wounded yourself in a Freudian way, what you need is a nice cheese sandwich and a piece of fruit - something healthy and life-affirming.  Eating last night's leftover rice pudding straight from the plastic bowl and following up with three Rocky Roads and a cup of tea is not the best option.  You will add your 'oh-I'm-so-unhealthy' despair to 'what-a-horrid-world-this-is' despair as well as to your 'I'm-even-scared-of-butterflies' despair, and you will find that the three combined, encountered even before 2 in the afternoon, will plunge you into a Slough of Despond that John Bunyan would be proud of.

Fran flicked through the beachwear catalogue, realising too late that a diet of rice pudding
and Rocky Roads was going to make her beach holiday that year an uncomfortable experience,

5.  After a morning like that, it really won't be a good idea to visit your gran and watch afternoon TV with her.  This is because, on top of the three types of despair outlined above, you are about to add a fourth kind by watching programmes about rich people who a) can afford to buy antiques like Edwardian vases and medieval bedwarming pans ; b) can afford to move to a gigantic house in the country with a paddock for ninety thoroughbreds and a pine kitchen table the size of Australasia ; c) weren't rich before they went on quiz shows but are now suddenly very very wealthy indeed and are just about to go on ten cruises and buy all their relatives Cartier jewellery.

Fran found that watching 'Escape to the Country' actually made her want to escape more often
to the fridge.  She would have to make another rice pudding.

How was your day?  As good as mine?