looking into a bottomless pit

I am so grumpy these days, it can't be good for me. I can feel a big lump of grumpiness in my tummy and it is not pleasant. Everything and everybody makes me cross. I even get cross in my dreams. If I was a cartoon figure, I would be walking around with a big grey cloud over my head.

Our neighbours make me cross. They must be deaf because the sound of their telly is always so loud that it is impossible to sit quietly in my own living room.

I get cross about big cars. There is just no need for a truck sized car in a city. The parking bays are not big enough and the inconsiderate owners often park across two bays, or worse, in a disabled bay. This really gets my blood boiling.

Traffic in general makes me very cross. There is a survival of the fittest attitude on the roads and as a cyclist, I am earmarked to be a casualty at some point in the future.

Personalised number plates make me cross. There is one in our street that reads "enema". I am sure it not intentional but that's how I interpret it. I don't know why these number plates make me cross, they are not particularly offensive on the grand scheme of things.

I have a friend whose life is much harder than everyone else's. Except that is is not, not really, but everything is just such a drama. It is tiresome. 

Litter makes me most cross of all. There is so much litter here and I am tired of asking kids, old ladies and anyone else politely to pick theirs up. I used to be to timid to do that, saying instead "I think you have lost something". Until one day an old wrinkly bent over nana said "Och no hen, thats just rubbish". Not long ago, I witnessed a distinguished looking woman with a big black bin bag walking across the road, drop it over the bridge wall onto the disused railway track next to the canal. Really! It would have been less effort to take the bag to the bins in the back lane. She was quick as a weasel and I didn't manage to catch up with her.

My children make me cross. Particularly when one tells me at 8:30 in the morning hat they need a brown outfit for a show at school right now. I sometimes feel like dancing when they finally go to bed.

It makes me really cross that I will have to pay money and complete a complicated form to be allowed to stay in this country, after 18 years of enjoying European Freedom of Movement. My employer organises information sessions for European citizens led by a law firm specialising in immigration law. It was suggested that we should have kept a "shoebox" into which we deposit all sorts of documents about our work and travel on a monthly basis. My clairvoyant younger self should have obviously known that the British people would be so thick as to reject the EU at one point in my future. We were informed that we should apply for the indefinite right to stay now. The lawyer also said that we would then need to apply for the new settled status proposed for after Brexit. He mentioned a fast track application process for those who have already applied for an indefinite right to stay but admitted that he didn't have a clue what that would look like. He was also unsure about the preparedness of the Home Office come next year.... No doubt you will have seen in the news that many Europeans had their applications rejected on the grounds of an incorrectly completed form. The right to appeal seems minimal. Well, apparently the Home Office is now taking a more pragmatic approach with scrutinising the forms. I find that too vague to take the risk. What if the chap scrutinising my own form is in a foul mood (it happens to the best of us) and doesn't feel particularly pragmatic? What does a "more pragmatic approach" mean anyway? Shaking my head in disbelief.

That's just the small stuff. I think what is actually happening is that the world around me is falling apart, humanity is becoming less and less humane and I feel like I am falling in a bottomless pit.

Alas, the world keeps on spinning and I better get on with my work. Thanks for bearing with me. I am sure I'll be less cross shortly.

The photos of Jack are meant to sweeten up this gloomy post :-) I have chosen them specially for Lee at Love Cornwall and Crochet, who loves to see Jack. Jack gets cross about neighbourhood foxes but is otherwise a sweet natured.