I got up, after an only mildly insomniac night, to a gorgeous autumn morning and ingested my first two tablets of the day, before toasting a slightly aged Easter bun for breakfast. 
Several vast mugs of tea and another tablet later, confident of a pain-free day thanks to modern pharmaceuticals, I drove to the Positive Aging Expo at the Headingly Centre in Richmond. Welcomed at the entrance by the cheerful strains of an electronic organ, I joined the throng which ambulated, Zimmered or were wheeled along the aisles of products and services on display. Only God knows what combination and quantity of pharmaceuticals there were circulating in our collective veins but we were all terribly upbeat in spite of the fact that everything on display - with the possible exception of the “Miracle Chopping Board” and the model train, screams ill health, infirmity and decline. 

Kneeling abjectly before computer and editor, I have attained a pure emptiness of mind which only the Dali Lama achieves so effortlessly. 

Although this may seem an enviable state, it’s hell for the columnist: an empty mind is empty of everything which makes column-writing even remotely feasible: ideas, motivation, willpower and fear. Monkey-mind is the columnist’s only true friend.

However, I have not given in to the columnist’s usual urge to expound on the horrors of punitively regular deadlines. Instead, I have employed my temporary mental clarity to put together the following sure-fire ten-step writing guide for fellow sufferers of writer’s block. 

Dread began stalking me as soon as I agreed to write a column for the Nelson Mail and on the eve of deadline, it had me firmly between its jaws. A large part of this dread originates in that fact that my column will appear in the very spot recently vacated by Teresa O'Connor. She has left behind very large shoes to fill although her feet are, in actuality, remarkably small. However, like Ms O'Connor my predecessor, I've got Irish forbears and the Irish proverb "What is nearest the heart is nearest the mouth" applies to us both. I'm just as maddened as she is by foolish bureaucracy, by venality and injustice. And I’m just as moved by small, unheralded acts of generosity and kindness: the grace moments of everyday life.