Comfort buying

I know that when some people are stressed they eat food. (I know this because I am one of them!). Other people relieve their stress by buying something that they don't need, but which makes them feels good. On my wife's advice I tried this today ... and it worked!

I won't bore you with all the details, but I was supposed to take my father to the hospital today to have his chest X-Rayed ... but when I arrived at his care home this morning he was just too weak and tired as a result of the various ailments that are afflicting him to make the trip, so I cancelled the appointment.

After discussing the matter at some length with the manager of the care home, she contacted the local doctor. The latter prescribed a stronger antibiotic in the hope that this would combat the main infection that my father has, and I took the prescription to the local pharmacy. The pharmacy was unable to dispense the antibiotic immediately, so I went for a short walk around the local shops to fill the time until the prescription was ready to be collected.

A few doors along the road from the pharmacy was a charity shop (it raises money for the local children’s hospice), and in the window was a large box entitled ‘Mini Wheels Military Force’ … so heeding my wife’s advice, I bought it for the massive sum of £5.50.

Although the box is labelled ‘1:72 Scale Plastic Playset’, the stuff inside is a mixture of scales. Most of the vehicles are 1:87th-scale and the aircraft seem to be approximately 1:100th-scale, whereas the figures are 35mm tall. That said, there is enough useful stuff in the box to form the basis of one small modern army (and air force) that I can use with my BIG BOARD PORTABLE WARGAME rules.

I was surprised at how much this single purchase helped to raise my spirits on a day when things otherwise appeared to be quite bleak ... and I will certainly look out for similar things to buy the next time I am feeling stressed by circumstances over which I have little or no control.

As to my father ... well the doctor managed to make a house-call whilst I was still at the care home and it has been decided to see if my father will respond to the new stronger antibiotics he has been prescribed. So for the next few days it is going to be a case of 'wait and see' what happens.