WE live by the western seaboard of Britain so we should expect a lot of rain and be philosophical about it – but the current stormy weather really is dampening my spirits.
This morning as soon as I saw the mighty Mersey rolling by I could have cried me a river. Honestly, my heart was that heavy.
Then as I drove down through the Wirral towards the ghastly, Satanic smokestacks of Ellesmere Port, framed as they were by doom-laden metallic skies, my heart sank even further.
By the time I reached the office where I work, in a very bourgeois village in Cheshire, I felt almost suicidal.

‘Yeah’, I can hear some of you think, ‘you’ve just got a bad case of that Monday morning, back-to-work feeling, like millions of others in the UK. Get over yourself, Regan!’
Well, anyhow, I got to work all right and started to plough through all the editing and answering of emails I have to do.
But by lunchtime, it was still p*ssing down outside, and still raining heavily in my heart. Sigh, sigh, sigh.
Then I made a Golden Virginia roll-up, got up from my desk, and headed off to my car for a smoke and to play some music – any music – really loud.
Aztec Camera’s ‘Love’ album was in the tape deck, so I listened to that, all the way through. It sounded great and it did me some good, but I still wasn’t feeling my usual cheerful self (stop that sniggering at the back! ).
Don’t know what’s brought this dip in my spirits. It can’t be the weekend, ‘cos I had quite a nice one…
On Friday, I had a day’s leave to take from work, and so I spent much of the day watching 80s pop classics on the big screen in Tallulah’s bar.
All good stuff … until the network decided we all needed to watch a medley of the the 'hits' of Cyndi Lauper.
Hits? I wasn’t aware this mad troll had any hits in the UK.
I also had a steak pie lunch in Tallulah’s, cooked by the lovely Shula, which was excellent, hearty and briefly cheering.
Some of the regular crew were in Tallulah's on Friday afternoon – Tezza the singer, Billy Bustimes, and, er, The Beast, I think. Greta bowled by later after she’d had her hair done.
At some point over the weekend, probably Friday night, I recall having an exotic pork stir-fry at Greta’s, cooked by her husband, Commuting Mitch.
Very tasty – though I think Mitch has forgotten that my middle name is ‘Big Portion’ and I was still quite hungry after I’d finished.
In fact, I had to raid their cupboards for Garibaldi biscuits to fill in the gaps in my stomach.
On Saturday I went to a barbeque on the New Brighton Dips that had been organised by Mini Marvin .
Swampy the gob iron player was there and so was Madame Adriatic the classical guitarist.
I was feeling poorly and off me food, so I just sat on a portable chair and tried to look enigmatic (well, I am a poet).
I went to this barbie with Commuting Mitch and his mum-in-law’s pet pooch – a dog that's the same exotic breed as Satan who terrorised Hell’s Waiting Room recently, though not nearly so snappy-snarly as the Evil One.
I think the dog is called Ella, or something like that. Mitch and Greta think if I take it out for a walk or into the bars in Madford-on-Sea it will help me pull a bird. Hmmphh!
Attract gay attention, more like, as Ella is of those things that looks more like an animated dish rag than a dog, and I believe our Friends of Dorothy are fond of such dainty creatures, especially when they have a dainty bow tied on the top of their heads.
Still, I'll try anything once, and I am, after all, a sophisticated modern, metrosexual man.
Talking of Dorothy, I nearly got into an argument in Tallulah’s bar with a bloke who was showing us his Shirley Bassey album. Apparently, Bassey is ‘cool’ now that she’s done Glasto in her wellies.
I’m afraid I disagreed with this fella. ‘Bassey was never anywhere nearly as good as her local South Wales contemporary, Dorothy Squires,’ I told him. Well, the man I spoke to was highly dismissive of the late Miss Squires.
So I told him that Bassey sounded like a goat with catarrh.
You know, it is a funny thing but controversy connected to Dorothy Squires seems to follow me around the country.
Well, if someone as dysfunctional as me has to have a leitmotiv I suppose it might as well be the barking but talented Dorothy Squires as anyone / anything else.
I dipped in and out of the drinking activity in New Brighton all over the weekend – because I was feeling so tired and rough. Kept going home for a rest.
Lots of people were out and about though, including Duncan Kindlyface, who encouraged me to go for a run, and Patriarch Narkus too, plus Delilah Durham and Runcorn Rita at various points as I recall.
A new member of the New Brighton Massive is a fella I’m calling the Medieval Saint, because he looks just like one, and I mean that as a compliment.
Seriously, it is good to look saintly in these awful, soul-rottingly materialist times.
I feel a little guilty because I encouraged the Medieval Saint to come back into Hell’s Waiting Room with me on, er, Saturday night, I think, and it turned out he had already drunk more than is good for him.
Hope he got home all right. I think barmen Bodlian and Burly looked after him.
I had promised to go and watch the Mickey Hatton fight on digital at Commuting Mitch’s place late on Sat night / Sun morning.
I turned up there all right, and I recall seeing Palindroma and her nephew Mally dancing and singing along stylishly to ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby?’, but I just didn’t have the strength to last the course and watch Micky Hatton’s victorious bout.
I do remember someone giving me a slice of cheese on toast as I lay on the sofa, however.
By Sunday, I was feeling too queasy to climb the hill to the Claude for a gathering with the chaps who I went to Krakow with, but I did have a few bevvies with Duncan Kindlyface and we kinda shot the breeze and put the world to rights.
So, what is ailing me? It can’t seriously be the rain and anyway that will pass…
I worry about my Ever Changing Moods, because I know grateful nations around the world are keying into this blog every day – including my many American readers (hi guys!) – and they expect to be cheered up or amused by my postings.
I can’t help thinking I am failing them when I’m feeling like this.
I dunno, I just don’t feel well, physically or spiritually, if you want to know the truth.
At the moment that doesn’t worry me much, actually, because it will pass. It always passes. Like the rain.
On the physical level, I always feel too hot and sweaty and I keep getting hot flushes and headaches from computer screen eye strain.
Plus, I can’t seem to find any energy, not even to do some desperately needed cleaning at my flat. Honestly, I live in fear of my visitors reporting me to the Social Services Gestapo at Wirral Council's Death Star.
There are things troubling my mind at the moment, as it happens, including illness and injury in my family in Wigan and certain other worries, including the announced closure of SS Peter and Paul Church in New Brighton.
But there is no One Big Thing that is making me feel down.
Anyway, I've always felt is an unrealistic and unnatural ambition to want to be happy all the time. Especially in this bloody country (Britain).
Most of all, when I’m feeling like this, I think of that wise line from the Style Council song … ‘I’m only sad in a natural way / And I enjoy sometimes feeling this way.'
Love xxx Steve.
PS Normal service will resume as soon as atmospheric conditions have improved.

• Post to:
•  del.icio.us
•  Digg
•  Newsvine
•  Nowpublic
•  Reddit