One of the best gifts I have been given in recent times is a coffee mug from my friend Alison that is inscribed with the words: “What a year this week has been.”

It is a tongue-in-cheek reference that perfectly captures how every Monday morning, without fail, we convene to optimistically convince ourselves that the upcoming seven days will be smooth sailing - only for things to swiftly and predictably descend into mayhem.

Time can feel strangely elastic amid the unfolding chaos. It gallops yet oddly stands still. Has it been a week? A year? A millennia? While some “weeks” are definitely testing, there is thankfully always plenty of wry humour sprinkled in there too.

Not least lately, when it has felt like the universe is conspiring to serve up a volley of hilariously pointed reminders that I’m no longer a spring chicken. How so? Let me count the ways …

A new boiler

It comes to us........

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