This is a question I’ve had to ask myself these past few days, as May seemed to whizz past like a brown-dyed whirlwind, with no sign of pausing at any point – if I’d had the money to pay someone to give me a lobotomy, I likely would.

But then, out of the blue, small moments of thankfulness make themselves known in the shape of an image, a smell, a voice message from a mind reader, that all remind me that I do have things to be grateful for. And that’s why, dear reader, I felt the need to write about the good things that make life worth living today. It’ll be a very short post, but don’t let that take anything away from the fact that acknowledging random glimpses of light makes one hell of an impact on the sometimes seemingly all-encompassing darkness.

If you’ve ever been so fortunate as to experience Edinburgh in springtime, you should be able to smell the photo at the top of this post – it’s a bizarre sort of coconutty smell emanating from the “common gorse”, its bright yellow flowers lighting the hillsides of Arthur’s Seat (and my heart) on fire. My first whiff of these bad boys, I was sure I’d overexerted myself during a run and was having a stroke!

Now that I’ve reached a ripe old age where that’s a distinct possibility, I’d kill for that to be the last thing I ever smelled. Not just because I think it’s a very nice smell, but because just looking at old photos of this peculiar plant brings me back to the things I am most grateful for – friendships forged in unbreakable materials, gargantuan gigs, the break of the first post-Fringe morning, my neighbour Iain, Easter bloody Road, running alongside Porty beach, kirkyard parties, CROY, trips down south on the Caledonian Sleeper, visits from the auld country, getting to see others experience this incredible city for the first (or thousandth) time … All I need to jump into Narnia for a brief moment, is one look at a photo.

So, I suppose I’m grateful for … Thomas Wedgwood and his failures?

Either way, there’s light in the darkness and I’m off to capture some of it. To my dear pal, whose birthday I am still celebrating two days later, I hope you know that I am endlessly grateful your light stretches across oceans.

To the rest of you, I shall see you next Tuesday. Until then, you should check out The Gratitudes.