Tim Dowling: an unsettling force has upset my equilibrium… hope

The sun is drying the dew off on the ivy. I can hear birds singing and children playing. It's too early

A year ago, I was contending that as someone who had always worked from home I'd been in training for a global pandemic for 30 years: I'll do your lockdown standing on my head - bring it.

That was a couple of lockdowns ago, but it's only recently that something has arrived to upset my mental equilibrium: hope. After months safely cloaked in the armour of despair, hope has suddenly left me unpeeled and paranoid: in my dreams, dark forces range against me, and the police are often involved.