Jogger with Tourette's...

I don't manage stress as well as I might. I sometimes need to vent my frustration. I find shouting obscenities helps and, in extreme circumstances, some sort of physical expression is required. I know that physical and emotional vents for stress in public are not fashionable. But when I need to vent, I find an immediate and uncensored response the most satisfying. However, this isn't always possible and I sometimes arrive home from work with several monkeys on my back. Today's monkeys were not work related monkeys, far from it; the entire troupe had found their way there from non work related sources.

To explain: this morning a gas engineer called at my house to service my boiler (not a euphemism). Shortly after his arrival at 8:30am he told me that I had a substantial gas leak (again, not a euphemism) but he could not locate the leak itself because most of the pipes were blocked in by my kitchen units. I had to go to work at 10:00am and so left the keys with a neighbour.

To find the leak, several fitted units in my kitchen had to be removed, I was told when he rang me. My heart sank. He said that whilst this was regrettable, the good news was that he had found the source of the leak and sealed it. After numerous other calls between me, him and various other tradesmen, I was informed that some finishing work was outstanding but the units had been put back and the gas reconnected; the kitchen was fully functional again.

However, when I got home at about six o'clock this evening, I found that my kitchen looked like something from the frontline in Misrata; and to top it all, the boiler wasn't firing, the cooker wasn't connected to the gas supply and, furthermore, the grill door to the gas cooker was hanging off. No hot water, no gas and a broken cooker. Furious is probably an understatement.

Prior to the availability of jogging as an option, nuclear meltdown would've been my only choice. I counted to ten and quietly put on my running kit, the odd rogue expletive occasionally escaping into the eerie silence. I quickly left the flat and started running. The first part of my run is across a 1km bridge carrying a dual carriageway spanning the mouth of the River Taff. Here, I can give full vent to my frustrations, which is exactly what I did. I must look very odd to oncoming traffic as I run along the pedestrian footpath across this bridge; ranting, jabbing the air, gabbling and twitching as I go.

A contorted and gesticulating, foul-mouthed gargoyle jogging through Cardiff? Yes but it does my heart a power of good and allows me to function almost like a normal human being. Almost...