In times when fury has to be constantly battled, distance – that most British of traits –  must be cultivated.

It’s just the way it has panned out, the jig the biorhythms seem to be dancing right now: there seem to be many, many many things to be very cross about indeed.

And tonight, during a walk in the forest, I realised what billions before me have already tumbled to: that you can’t keep being cross. It’s exhausting. It leads to all sorts of health problems. And  as one of my great heroes, Edmund Blackadder, once said, it’s like a broken pencil: pointless.

My wanderings today took me past a field full of luscious pinkish grasses: often there’s a deer standing there waiting coquettishly to be terrified into flight. Not today though. Today there was a foxglove waiting there,  sticking out like a sore thumb but utterly ravishing just the same. How totally diverting: it tugged at my mind and swept me stagily away from the days events, towards a world which is eternally cyclical.

This natural  stuff happens. It goes on happening whether or not our world crumbles or falls apart. So: time to measure some distance between me and any conflict, using seven-league-boots, and concentrate on those incongruous, perfect foxgloves.