Just when I thought this world couldn’t get any worse, that we had already seen enough disasters, suffered enough injustice and fought our way through disappointment after disappointment to be immunised against any more pain, there was so much more.

I heard it coming, we all did.

More of the same, we thought, expecting to shrug it off and get on with our lives. We have long lived with the knowledge that we are at the mercy of those in charge, and that tilting at windmills isn’t really an option.

So why does it feel different this time?

Why do we feel so completely abandoned and betrayed?

We have joked about going to hell in a handcart, but it was still a shock to see it trundling down the road towards us.

I have been waking up in the morning feeling ill, trying to convince myself it is yet another symptom of old age. I am normally an enthusiastic person. Glass half full and all that, but these last few days have seemed empty and hollow. I can usually summon up the energy to fake it until it comes back, but for the first time in my life, I don’t really want to.

But supposing the enthusiasm never come back, what then?

In a way, I am rather glad to be old. Life doesn’t mean the same to me as it once did. I have passed the point of worrying and making plans, content to potter along in my relatively peaceful retirement.

But my little boat seems to have lost its moorings, been cut adrift and left to sink into deep water, with no visible means of reaching the shore…