New Year Post

I have been thinking about writing a New Year’s blog post.  Something erudite and sophisticated.  So I looked at what other’s are writing about, gratitude mainly and plenty of posts entitled 12 Things That Happy People Do Differently. (Basically they are nicer than me and think nice thoughts).  It was all so déjà lu.  I toyed with the idea of writing a blog about blue sky thinking but then it came to me.  The one blog post you all need to read which will change your world.  It’s about…

Mr. Jules’ Man Toe.

You’ve all heard of Man Flu.  Mr. J. has gone one step forward (pun intended). It all started with the usual holiday packing stress that Mr. J. suffers from.  Mr. J. needs very few things in his life.  A small carry on case with a few shirts, socks, pants, razor.  (He squats my toiletry bag).  The three women in his life need many things in their lives.  Many, many, things. Electrical hair tools, hair products, brushes, chargers, plug converters and those are just the smaller cases.  His blood pressure started rising when he saw that Sophie-G. was attempting to take her boarding school trunk to Switzerland for the holidays – first argument.  Swearing under his breath about Albanian refugees he then dropped a piece of luggage on his pinkie as he tried to manoeuvre it into the cab.

He refused to talk to any of us on the way to the airport.  He refused sympathy and medication which we all produced from our voluminous bags.  Sophie even proferred her ankle protection.   Nada.  He was incommunicado.  I had visions of having to organise a wheelchair at the airport but he soldiered on, steadily limping ahead and ignoring us.

He refuses to talk to us, the ones who made him suffer, about his Man Toe but discusses it at length with any visiting family members and at the last count, the whole of Verbier.  The many hues of purple, blue and pink are exclaimed at and grown men debate on the efficacy of applying a splint.

So why is Mr. J’s Man Toe a relevant New Year’s posting?  There is a lesson here.  Two things: we should all be more grateful – he has another 9 toes in working order; be careful where we lay blame – look to ourselves first…er hum.  But my New Year’s message is please, don’t sweat the small stuff, think about the big picture always. Which brings me back to my original idea of encouraging a mind set of blue sky thinking in 2012 but then you wouldn’t have heard about Mr. J’s Man Toe.