And so it's September. A beautiful month of colour and varying light. For those of us struggling through, I sometimes think this can be a kind month. If we look. It holds warmth in the colours that surround us...trees and bushes begin to take on amber glows or fire-like blazes and although temperatures begin to drop, there is comfort in that. No longer do we need to feel guilty that we are not feeling magazine-happy in the glowing days of summer (they are so overt they make me shy away) but we can layer on scarves and socks and wrap-in our mood to tell it that it is ok.

Now would be a good time to prepare ourselves. If you are like me, the entire year brings lows at various times, but the days of January and February are my lowest and so it's now that I must prepare for them. Harvest the energy I have and prepare some coping strategies in advance. For me, I am going to try having a survival kit this year...for the days when night-time seems impossible to reach. A real physical box of tricks that I can call upon. Just by planning this has already shown me that I have had a shift in my attitude and therefore I am claiming a Willy Wonka gold medal for it. Amongst other things in my kit I will lay inside the following:

1. A copy of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (my favourite book of all time, so many layers within it, and something which will lift me on a dark day and also require little concentration.

2. Chocolate – Green & Blacks organic 80% (high quality dark chocolate helps serotonin, it's also so rich it's not something you can gorge on.

3. Pistachios and a note saying 'Eat Me'

4. Raisins and a note saying 'Eat Me'

5. A note of music I need...Ray Lamontagne maybe, Springsteen definitely.

6. A list of a meal I can shop for and make simply (when ill, we need instruction).

7. A list of instructions: get up on time, shower, make kids breakfast, eat what I make them eat, get them to school, have cuppa with fruit, prepare dinner and put on laundry, sit down for a bit, nap or read, maybe write, do not stare vacantly at hoover willing it to move, it will only move if you move it.

8. A written reminder that it is ok to have days with minimal output.

9. Some photographs of happy times to show me that I can, I have and I will.

September is also the month I lost a friend. I will think of him and remember his massive, infectious and silly smile and I will remember that I have the chance to live. Let's do it. What will be in your survival kit?

Love from

The room above the garage.

A Moodscope member.