You should never ever be optimistic or positive in any way. It just doesn’t pay off. And I don’t mean Spurs. Even though that would be a good rule for Spurs fans. But just take this morning…

I went off to Tai Chi at 8. It was a fabulously beautiful morning. I took the top off the car and enjoyed the gorgeous sky. Glad I’d put a jacket on. I never said it was warm. And on the way home, it was not only still lovely but, unusually for a Saturday morning, the roads were really clear. I may have broken the speed limit, but not by much. Just enough that I feel I’m actually moving. And I thought ‘this is great’!

Big mistake. A woman, who we’ll call ‘Paula’, mainly because that’s her name, pulled out of a side street and hit my car. I saw her waiting to pull out, gave her a ‘wide berth’, but she came anyway. WTF???

Normally such an offence against the vehicle I love carries an instant death penalty. And, coming from my class, I was carrying a sword. But the look on her face as she came over to me was so totally remorseful and apologetic I decided to spare her. Until it goes to court, obviously, then all bets are off. She admitted total liability and even though it sounded like she caved in the entire side of the car, it was in fact only a few scratches on the bumper. Luckily. Because she was driving one of those massive Kia electric things which weigh about 3 tons, which gives great damage potential. She gave me her details and she shall have my scratches repaired.

So it wasn’t so bad after all. I could still almost be positive because as I went to tennis it wasn’t raining. However, there were more surprises lurking on this day so filled with early promise. Article 7: see photo: fucking great Willow tree sprawled across my tennis court. I put Spurs Paul in the picture for scale purposes. He’s a big bloke. It’s a massive tree. Victim of storm Austin. Never mind, we played on a different court.

And it started raining. Not enough rain to stop us; we’re MEN, who don’t cower at a mere shower. Which later turned into a torrent, which is more abhorrent. So we eventually had to stop.

So I’d just like to say a big ‘THANK YOU, GOD!!!!’, for sending Paula, then felling a tree on my tennis court and making it rain. Things can only get better (as we play Chelsea at 5.30 tonight), ‘we can only hope’. And how does ‘hope’ usually work out???

Happy Saturday (I’m still trying)

A xxxx