I decided to give in and dig out my winter coat last week. (And BOY was I glad I did with all that white stuff falling down all over me wherever I’ve gone since.) Today I noticed its pockets were stuffed full of rubbish – you know the sort of thing, years old fluff, train tickets from journeys now unknown, an old crisp packet, a key for something long forgotten, receipts and other complete junk.

It was time to relieve myself of all of this stuff so I fished it all out, checked through it to make sure there was nothing important and I came across this tiny fragment of paper screwed up in the corner….you can see its tatty edges from where it’s been there ages.

When I unravelled it, I realised it was another of my ‘emotional crutches’ a fortune cookie’s inside with a really sweet slogan that obviously made me happy at the time I opened it - enough to screw it up and keep it. I love ANYTHING that has a smiley on it too. Weirdly (or not) I can’t even remember the occasion when I got it – I rarely eat Chinese food because I hate the after effects of MSG so much – you know, you eat it, it tastes delicious then you wake up at 4am with a raging thirst and can’t go back to sleep. Ugh.

This had to become my pic of the day because well, frankly, the inside of this hotel room has absolutely nothing that is remotely photogenic in it and the lighting is terrible – presumably the designer of the room chose ‘discreet’ lighting to disguise the miserable surroundings!

But it actually does demonstrate two things about me – firstly that I have this strange, ever hopeful streak in me that says ‘if the fortune cookie says it’s true then it MUST be true’. The second thing is that I had a similar experience today, while waiting in the reception of a client for my meeting this afternoon. They had the Daily Mail in reception – that rag that I have spouted about before. However, I have a sneaky confession to make, which is that when I see a copy of it, I always flick to one page.

The one page in an otherwise worthless publication that I think has any value – the page that has ‘Peanuts’ – any sight of Snoopy, Charlie Brown or indeed any of the gang always makes my day so I always break my own rules and seek out Charles Schulz’s wonderful work. Today’s was fab in case anyone is interested. The same page has ‘Fred Bassett’ too and Fred is another of my little indulgences. Again, another reason to smile and another goodie today. Finally, it is the page with the horrid-scope on it and although I mock, I’m an avid reader (yeah, yeah, Mrs Gully-ball) and always believe what I read. Today’s message for me (I’m a Leo) was about leaping into the unknown and taking a huge risk – yep, I can relate to that.

It went on to say that something hugely important will happen to me in the next 24 hours that will mean that my step into the darkness will bring the reward I’d hoped for. I so hope that it’s right because I’m feeling impotent and thoroughly cheesed off at not having whatever it takes to get the next bit of the jigsaw that is the ‘grand plan’ in place. It seems that no matter how many times we make phone calls, cajole and chivvy along, we can’t get this bit to happen for us.

So, is finding this slip of scrappy, cheap paper another sign? Boy I hope so.

As I picked it up when I had photographed it, I noticed it had some random lottery numbers on the back……whaddayareckon? Should I stump up a quid and see if that’s what’s going to work for me? Nah – my stats training tells me that the odds against winning are massive – I’d rather bank on the horrid-scope and hope for the grand plan……

Two years ago, we were walking in the woods and last year I was 'labelled with love'.