Last week I was in a slow-moving queue in a sports shop. As I shared an exasperated look with another customer, she turned to her friend and said loudly, ‘if I’d known it would take this long, I’d have brought a picnic.’ We all laughed, forgetting the heat, expense and stress of our surroundings for a brief moment.

Since then I’ve been thinking a lot about how we cope when times are hard, when the wait for things to get better is never-ending.

It’s not a solution but finding small ways to lift our spirits helps. Things like sitting out in the sun with a cool drink, walking through a rose garden, chatting with a friend, going to the seaside, having a picnic. Even if none of those things are physically possible, we can get there in our imagination.

It takes a bit of a push, but it is possible to find ways to make difficult circumstances a little more bearable. The woman in the shop had a hearing aid and was looking after her disabled friend too. And yet, she was able to lift her thoughts to picnics.

What could you do today to cheer yourself up?

Even in the darkest of woods or the deepest valley, you can still have sandwiches.