We’ve just finished National Grief Awareness Week. This is a good thing to finish as, in my opinion, it has no reason to exist. We’ve always had grief, but we haven’t always had a need to parade it for all to see. Now that we have TV and no quality threshold it’s quite common to see grieving family members making a meal of it on the news, or even friends or neighbours or people from the street who just wanted a few minutes on TV

I know that there are people who read the blog, who have suffered grief and bereavement. I’ve also noted that every one of them has dealt with it in what I consider a dignified manner. There will probably  be others who probably haven’t mentioned it. I’ve been feeling a bit down myself this week for various reasons to do with family deaths and the time of year, However, I don’t see the need to have a National Week devoted to grieving, with public displays of emotion and downloadable posters. Sorry if this makes me sound old-fashioned or unfeeling, but that’s how I am.

This post could now go one of three ways – a sensitive examination of grief in the 21st Century, a reflective post on the phenomenon of “National Week of…” or I could upset people and put the boot into modern sensibilities.

Tricky choice. I grew up in a world where things were different. They may not have been better, but they were different. When I look around me, I can’t really say things are better than they were.

However, I don’t go out of my way to upset people and I realise that not everybody shares my views. If a national newspaper were to weigh in with a handful of banknotes I would happily start to upset people. I could be the next Katie Hopkins.

I’d just like to point out to all the people who have been moaning recently that the government closing nail bars is not a denial of human rights, that the Magna Carta didn’t confer the right to have your hair done and that we can’t always do what we want. Sometimes you have to suck it up and suffer a bit.