It’s at times like these, I wished I believed in a god. Then I could shout and rant at him / her / it for the horribleness of my life right now. I do believe in the power of prayer (postive thought anyway), the spirituality of goodness and the shock and awe of nature. She / he / it should be admired, praised, recognised everywhere, and of course as we’ve seen in the last couple of days, respected.

But I can hardly blame the wind and the rain for my current troubles. Forgetting the fact my mum had a massive stroke that devastated her life – and mine, and the fact I am struggling with a new baby, let me list just a little of the crap that the universe has thrown my way the last 5 months that have left me feeling shattered:

• mastitus – twice
• gum infections – twice
• snowed in – twice
• chest infections – you got it, twice times 3 girls
• a week in hospital with my baby on oxygen and a feeding tube
• car breakdown in pouring rain and two kids and baby in car
• a leaking roof
• 10 nights out of 165 with 6 hours sleep (the rest were far less)
• weeks with the girls, weekends with my mum

and now…. to cap it all… the baby has a vomitting and diarrhea bug. I had to abandon my visit to mum as I was so busy wiping up Ruby’s vomit I had no time to sit with her. So at this point in the game, I’d be shouting up at it / her / him to GIVE ME A BREAK!

I have always been rather optimistic. Definitely a half-glass full girl. I am struggling at this stage to find anything in the glass at all. I even find it hard to believe that something won’t happen to stop us going on holiday tomorrow – to Morocco (yes I know, but we booked pre- facebook revolutions!). So instead I will say instead, I’m off on holiday tomorrow for ten days togetherness with my family – volcanic ash / uprising and rebellion / sick children notwithstanding.

But just when I think my life cannot get any worse – and I have felt this so many times recently and then it did – I turn on the news and know I am lucky. I may feel at times that my ground is shaking beneath my feet, but for those poor people in Japan yesterday for whom it really did they had no escape. I may feel swept away by the magnitude of the challenges facing me at the moment, but for those poor people who were swept away by the sheer force of nature they had no chance of ever overcoming it. My life is hard at the moment – harder than I ever thought possible – but there is no-one to blame. It is just life, in all it’s wonderful and cruel forms. And while there are days I struggle to get through, I am reminded by these terrible events in Japan that at least there will be another day for me. And I wish I believed in a god so I could thank her / it / him.