The Wolf at the Door

I have 65p to my name (excluding credit cards and overdraft).

A guy huddling outside the Co-Op wrapped in a blanket said: 'Got any change, love?'

I looked at him and said: 'Mate, change is all I have.'

Doug gave me the thirty pounds I needed to get my computer fixed. Bella the Cat looked at me reproachfully when I left the notes on the bedside table. She knows what is going on. I turned and met her glittering green eyes. 'Yes, I know,' I say. 'But the wolf is at the door. He is growling and snarling and is fiercer than ever before. He is bigger than both of us and, as you are the smallest, you will be the first to be consumed. That's reality and it's brutal. It's razor sharp and that is why I seek almost constant refuge in sleep.'

'You see, Bella, you just don't understand how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning (see girl - and I don't feel like a woman, never have done, never will do - degenerate into self-pitying lump of useless jelly). Hostile faces surround me when I leave my refuge - it's like living in a forest of cacti. People are so rude here. They display no affection, no warmth, 'Gee, you British are so uptight,' a disillusioned American student over here on his gap year once complained to me.

'I'm right with you there, mate.' I should have asked him to pack me in his suitcase when he eventually returned to the good old U.S. of A!