I’m in a terrible mood today.  It started with a bad dream, continued with a hideous journey into work followed by eight hours of exasperation at faulty software systems, ending in another vile journey home.  Somebody suggested that I cycle to work.  Sure! I’ll go the whole hog, get a little basket for the front of my bike so I can stop off at the boulangerie for fresh bread and pastries and roll up to work as fresh as a daisy after a nine mile ride on some of the most treacherous roads in the city.

We’re supposed to be having an Indian summer, but I missed all two hours of it because I was held prisoner in a windowless office where the only weather I’m ever aware of is rain as it batters down on the timpanic roof that covers the building’s atrium. Other than that, I am cocooned in a soulless, airless hell where, if I sit still for long enough, the lights dim and I get plunged into darkness.

Within a day of returning to work my back has started aching again, my permafrown has returned.

The dream I had last night has been with me all day too; thoughts of past betrayals coming back to haunt me out of the blue.

Frustrations with bad traffic, work technology and my own personal failures have put me into a bad humour and I’m feeling snarly and miserable.  

But this time of year scares me as I anticipate the darkness and the cold, never knowing quite how badly I’ll react to it all.  There’s a strong possibility that my recent depression has had a physiological cause which has now been rectified and I will be fine this winter, but I only have the past few years to go on and so I am naturally apprehensive as the days shorten noticeably.

I should embrace the winter months, starting with Bonfire Night.  Standing in front of a raging bonfire, holding a sausage while fireworks explode above me.  Looking up as the smoke clears to reveal a starry sky on a crisp November night.  Walks in the woods, kicking through the fallen leaves as the sun starts to set at 3.30pm.  Frost that persists all day on hard surfaces.  Big jumpers and scarves, warming casseroles and the autumn TV schedule.  Yes!  I can see how that would be lovely.

But what’s the reality?  The temperature hovering around 10ºC, high winds and torrential rain.  That’s what we get.  And that ruins everything. And the TV schedule isn’t that good when X Factor yields the same ridiculous stories each year while one contestant becomes a tabloid hate figure.

Work becomes more stressful and the journey gets worse as December approaches.  And as December approaches, you resign yourself to spending another festive period on your own, putting a brave face on things, putting on parties for the family, but they’re really for yourself.  

And at the back of your mind, you tell yourself, just see it through to March; things start to feel better in March.