LACK OF CONFIDENCE

I'm having one of those days when I feel like I can't do anything right. There's no-one pointing it out, just me constantly analysing, reflecting, calculating and predicting. It started with a text message from my downstairs neighbour, which actually woke me up:

Hi Matt sorry to bother you but you need to check your flat as there is something banging upstairs which had gone on all night probably the wind has something to do with it - it kept me awake most of the night at first I thought there was someone up there! As mentioned there is no sound proofing and I can hear every footstep.

I raced over there. I'd left the bathroom window half-open and the wind was gently tugging at the door. It had been shut but the wind was pulling it to-and-fro in the doorframe, and it was softly thudding against the wood. It was barely noticeable really - I could have slept through it, but somehow the floor must have amplified that sound through the downstairs ceiling. I don't know how to tell her I'll be brining a piano with me.

Then there was the ivory paint. It looked great in the tin, looked perfectly creamy and delicious on the brush, but when it met the wall, for some reason... it was brown - a murky kind of brown, like builder's tea. I carried on with it, hoping that by the time it was dry it would lighten up a bit, or that somehow it was an optical illusion. I can't work out what's happened there. Unfortunately my inability to see colours properly makes this whole exercise a bit nervy. For all I know, it could be purple.

I hate feeling so unconfident. I imagined sitting there in the lounge one day while people inevitably ask why I'd gone for brown walls and a green carpet. Any idea how foolish it feels to say you thought it was ivory? The thought of all of that made me feel a little bit sick.

I've got a cold too, I think. I've been sneezing and spluttering again. I suppose I should get a little sleep before tackling those ugly walls again tomorrow. Also, I can't help worrying that I've left a window open again.

Oh, the sixth day of Christmas

Was when the geese arrived!

I found them munching grass

And laying eggs all up the drive

And as I stood there gawping,

The geese came honking in

All six of them a-squawking

In the squabble and the din

Now history remembers

The things which went before

But no-one ever mentions

There's a Goose and Chicken War

For centuries this conflict

Has rumbled without words

The battle fought in layers

Between these noble birds

So the hens were madly shrieking

The geese were hissing back

I pushed them to the garden

To stop the French attack

On the sixth day of Christmas

My true love sent me geese

But what she'd really given

Was a total lack of peace