Just a spring clean for the May queen

I don't think anybody can argue with me when I say that some of the most pleasurable things in life can be the simplest, and sometimes, the best things in life really are free.

Tomorrow and Sunday are my days off. Complete, total days off. Everything I need is here. I don't have to leave the house at all, and I won't. I will spend the evening curled up on my sofa with a good book (£1), my favourite foods, delicious chocolate for pudding (£1), and in my cosy pyjamas, under a blanket. I will drink some fizzy orange and maybe have a vodka. I will read my book, or maybe I'll watch the TV or a DVD, and I will do it by the orange glow of the heater, long after the pigeon outside my flat has to gone to bed to escape from the pitter-patter of the rain. My flat will be tidy, and for a few hours, I won't worry about anything. Then I'll go to bed to sleep for as long as I like.

Maybe next week, we'll have a lovely sunny day again. The kind of day where it's not so hot as to be uncomfortable, but it's warm enough to not need a jacket and bright enough to wear sunglasses. These are my favourite days, the kind of days where you sit in the grass and have picnics and drink cold drinks and just enjoy being outside, not complaining about the heat, not complaining about the coat, not complaining at all. Sunbathing on beaches in Barbados can never compare to a sunny day in England. The thing about our sunny days is that we never expect them and there's so few of them that it's such a brilliant surprise to wake up to warmth and sunshine, and you know you have to go outside and make the most of it, because you don't know when there'll be another day quite like that. Waking up to a sunny day and knowing I can spend it outside always puts me in a better mood. Sometimes, like everybody else, I get miserable. I get depressed. I feel like everything is a little pointless and a little hopeless and I wish I wasn't here or anywhere else. But then, a sunny day comes along, and I know that if I wasn't here, I wouldn't be able to enjoy it. I'd never be able to sit out in the sun and have a picnic and wear sunglasses. I'd never be able to get caught in a spring breeze where all the cherry blossom blows off the trees. Those are the kind of days that give you a little perspective - it really isn't all bad. If something as simple as a bit of sun can make me appreciate being alive as much as it does, then I know that it's not all pointless. Change is on that spring breeze, and it's perfectly okay to hope that it brings with it something good.

Alright, that's the mawkish stuff out of the way for a while, I hope. Normal service will resume as soon as possible.