Anybody starting to feel somewhat overwhelmed? When it rains it pours, and I’m not talking about the weather.

As with my blog post from Friday, I had plans to talk about fishing today but in fact I just don’t feel like it. I count myself very fortunate that I have never suffered from any mental health issues, but I am aware of numerous people who do and who have. I like to think that I am a positive person, and I need you to know that I categorically am not having a moan here. We live in a big house with plenty of indoor and outdoor space, and whilst we obviously never chose to live in a quiet corner of Cornwall for any other reason than we love it, it’s not exactly the worst place to be riding out the current situation. The weather might currently be killing any meaningful chance to get out bass fishing, but it’s December and that’s the way things often go at this time of year. I am five years clear of my melanoma, I have been with the same awesome woman for twenty eight years now, I have two healthy and highly motivated teenage daughters, I love my work, I love fishing more than ever, and I still really like wearing tights under my waders……………………..

For no other reason than it makes me happy when I think about times like these

But these are some seriously unprecedented times, and I would hazard a guess that many of you kind people reading this particular blog post are in a similar boat to me here. I am trying my absolute best to remain positive and be a rock for my family, but from time to time it feels like a black cloud is doing its resolute best to take over my head and overwhelm me with this horrible feeling that life is never going to get back to normal and this is what we are stuck with. I don’t believe this by the way, indeed I firmly believe that at some point we are going to get our normal lives back - but when? A decent walk with my sheepdog Storm usually sorts me out into a better headspace, but what about people who aren’t as fortunate as me? I have absolutely no right to feel remotely overwhelmed with how fortunate I am, but the recent bout of virus happenings as such feel almost like another nail in the coffin of what was once a life that we took for granted and never for one second imagined that it could be so rudely taken away from us. Hell, at this point in time I’d (almost) jump at the chance to go and sit in a crowded cinema and watch the worst film ever made, The English Patient.

I think about my parents who have to now spend this Christmas on their own this year because of the changes over the weekend. Same with my in-laws. I lost my favourite aunt to cancer in the summer - she truly was a special person who I so miss talking to - and I think about her husband/my uncle who will spend his first Christmas in I don’t know how many years without the woman he loved for nearly all his life. A good friend of mine lost his truly lovely wife to cancer during lockdown, and like my uncle he will be spending his first Christmas without his soulmate. None of this is remotely right and in some respects it’s just plain selfish of me to even write a blog post like this when there are countless people in far, far tougher situations than me and my family, but we are all in some sort of situation the like of which we have never seen before here. I would urge any of you who have any worries about any of your friends or relatives to make a call or a Facetime or something like that - ask them how they are, tell them you are thinking of them, make plans to see them when we are allowed to again. If you have an urge to lash out on social media, don’t do it. Be kind instead. At some point in the future we are going to get back to normal, but in the meantime we are all in this together. We have to believe that at some point we will look back upon these times and wonder if it was actually as confusing and worrying and scary as it all actually is. You all please take good care of yourselves and your families…………….