There's a bank statement on the kitchen worktop that's been keeping a steady eye on me all evening and not in a confidence inspiring way either. Let's put it like this: I've felt better auras in my time. Uncomfortable. I need a course of action. Something needs to give.

In life there are two options, or so I tell anyone who's in earshot: do nothing, and on occasion this actually works, it's the right choice in fact; or alternatively, there's the do something approach, which invariably generates all sorts of excitements, and usually the best of the pair...if there were, of course, just two; there's not, far from it, there's another, a third option, private, hidden away from the others. If only I could say I used it the way a Chef might use saffron in a recipe, sparingly and with almost reluctance, since it's so rare and discrete a pleasure. I don't. I throw the third option around with the gusto of someone drenching fish and chips in cloud of salt and vinegar. I delay, I procrastinate, I put off... why do today when I can do it tomorrow.... tomorrow's another day, and this one has been tough enough already...get my drift?

I prefer to defer misery than defer gratification, and as my gut feeling says this statement may be...er...challenging, it's sleep well this evening, fret like mad in the morning. Tomorrow we open the letter....