Negative

I was thinking this morning I can usually tell before the taxi has got to the road out of town if the driver is going to be what I consider negative. As you might imagine today's chap showed all the signs. To be fair there's quite a few conversational styles that aren't quite positive enough for me tastes... There's the general whingers, the why is my life so hard types, the we are all doomed sorts, the people who, on the face of it, are upbeat but actually only want to tell you about how good they are at life - how they beat the system, put down adversaries, know more about everything than anyone else...and their close cousins who are full of tales about how bad other people are - often people of different ethnicity, political persuasion, income bracket etc and especially if they heard about it second hand! I give thanks for so
many opportunities to classify my fellow human beings when I struggle to maintain my side of what is essentially not even a conversation...

I give thanks for the driver this evening being one to whom I can (and do) genuinely say 'Thank goodness it's you!' It had been a day to try the patience of patients, staff and transport providers so it was good to have amiable chat on our delayed journey home.

I give thanks for already planning a not very active evening as it's a busy week ahead starting with an earlyish start to go back to the hospital tomorrow to see the oncologist. For planning to go a different route for this appointment to introduce some novelty and for going to get rail tickets this morning to avoid panic in the inevitable queues at the machine and ticket window when a train is due. For having a mac to hand when it started tipping it down just as I was about to leave...

I give thanks for seeing the funny side when a small avalanche of items displaced for decorating purposes resulted in a broken full length mirror. For someone in my position seven years of any kind of luck would be a bonus and, though disposal of the pieces will be tricky, I was more concerned that the heater which fell over too wasn't damaged. An evening's chill without its warmth would be something I'd probably have found it hard to be positive about...