I’M writing this looking through my big window at the view of green fields which are dappled by long rays of sunlight, making it difficult for me to think that we are now in the middle of the coldest month of the year.

We were, as they say, ‘chewing the fat’ with some friends yesterday, and recalling the awful winter of, was it 1947?

Oh, yes, I can go back that far, and I recall walking to school through very thick snow, and having to knock the huge pads of snow off my clogs.

Buses had stopped running, and shops were well into rationing their customers, as food deliveries were not getting through.

We nodded our heads and tut tutted and said things such as ‘really, the kids today just don’t know how lucky they are’, before I thought good heavens Margo, you are beginning to sound just like your mum.

Funny isn’t it, we all like to think that we had a rather hard time growing up, when the reality of it was, we didn’t, because our mums and dads made sure that we didn’t.

Mum always saved some of the sugar ration to make us some home-made treacle toffee, and my dad would give us the cards out of his cigarette packets, though, admittedly, they weren’t the best, as the only cigarettes he smoked were Woodbines.

I remember a posh little lad, who lived near us, showing us the cards that came out of the packets that his dad smoked — and they were embroidered fabric ones!

I know that you are not supposed to moan about how you feel, and that if you are in pain, good manners suggest that you should keep all thoughts about it to yourself, but I have got to the stage when I can’t.

I’m being driven bonkers by tinnitus.

Now, I hear you ask, ‘what on earth is that?’ Well, in my case it’s a buzzing noise in my head, so if anyone out there has a cure, or at least some sort of alleviation, I would be most pleased to hear about it...