It was a pretty January Saturday morning; the sun was shining and the world had that inspiring winter crispness about it. “I know we have jobs to do today,” I said to Tracey, “but let’s try to make it fun.” We decided to have a decadent TV breakfast. I bought Tracey a box set of the 1960s comedy show Bewitched for Christmas and half an hour of that would be the perfect start to the day.

I put the disc in the machine. We played an episode. We laughed and then after 4 minutes, the DVD player made a weird noise and crashed. We switched it back on. It crashed again. The moment had passed so we went off to do jobs.

A cloud started moving across the sun.

I went upstairs to check my emails. Last year I started a blog, the one you’re reading now, but after a few entries I ran out of steam and forgot about it. My emails told me that my trial membership was over and that £51 had been taken from my account to pay for the next year’s blogging. Ouch!

I was annoyed.

Then I tried to renew my driving licence because I had a letter from the DVLA saying it was time. The online form didn’t work. Apparently, the number on my driving licence and the reminder letter that DVLA sent me is not recognised as an actual driving licence number. Fortunately, there was a second form you could fill in to complain about the first form not working so I filled in the second form about the first form and it asked me for a lot of details – I expected name and address and a security question or two, but there was much more than that and the inevitable outcome of me filling in the second form about the first form is that when I hit the ‘submit’ button I got a message that said ‘Your session has timed out.’

Outside, the clouds rolled in.

Armed with the experience of filling in the second form about the first form I knew what to expect when I filled in the second form a second time and this time it went through. “Thank goodness,” for that I thought as a chink of sunlight broke through the clouds outside.

An email from DVLA appeared in my inbox, an automated response to my second form complaining about the first form. The email thanked me for submitting the second form about the first form and advised me that the first form must have been completed incorrectly so I should check it again.

Tracey came in to offer me coffee and, I think, immediately regretted it.

I spent the next few minutes searching the DVLA website for a way to complain about the second form that had entirely failed to help me resolve my issues with the first form, hoping it wouldn’t take the form of a third form about the second form about the first form. In the end I did find an email address for making complaints so I tried that and got an automated response that included a phone number. Progress!

I then called the number and was put on hold so had to listen to telephone piped music  (Bat out of Hell by Meatloaf and Always Crashing in the Same car by David Bowie  – just kidding). This went on for about two minutes and then I got put through to…

… a recorded message saying no one is free to take my call so please call back another time which I did.

And then another time….

And another…..

And another….

I eventually sent another email, this one angrier in tone. As I hit the send button I felt good, full of righteous indignation.

And so here I still am, weeks later, stuck at home with no driving licence and no one to complain to about the second form not helping with the first. Here I am being annoyed by the little things in life – the door handle to the garage that falls off every time you use it, the DVD player that is bewitched by Bewitched, the hold message on the phone where they say “Your call is important to us so please enjoy this 40 minute flute solo,” the people at work who say “Make sure you don’t overwork,” and then give you more work to do, the broken biscuit that’s always at the top of a pack of custard creams (why not leave that one out), the people on Zoom who don’t know how to mute and turn their computer speakers up to 11, the sameness of the days in this Covid winter.

I switch on the radio and there’s a story about a Covid outbreak in DVLA, where I sent my recent angry email. Now I feel bad.

It all makes me think. Little things get to us disproportionately in times like these so let us be kind and patient.

Someday soon, we’ll be back on the road.