I AM in a quandary, as I often am when I tap out this column. As an avid news hound, I often wrestle with the urge to comment, dissect, pontificate and ruminate on the stories of the day but know that this was not the starting principal of this column and that there are many other sections of the newspaper in to which you can dive to swim through politics and other news.

There is so much going on at the moment from Coronavirus (COVID-19) to floods to Brexit negotiations to resigning civil servants, but then, there is always so much going on.

However this weekend some of the national news has felt very local and very close to home. As the rain lashed down pretty much all day Friday and the wind did too much howling and yowling for my liking, we went to bed and then awoke to roads that looked like rivers between Sully and Barry and fields resembling lakes in Dinas Powys.

My son and I played ‘spot the tops of the trees’ as we drove a diverted route to get to his football match on Saturday morning and discussed climate change and the power of nature at length as we drove through sun, hail, wind, and rain to get him to his match.

The third weekend of storms has taken its toll. It feels tiring and worrying to be soaked once more.

But it occurred to me as we left the house early and crawled along with other diverted drivers that just a few miles up the road in Pontypridd and indeed in other parts of Wales and across the UK, people are witnessing their homes and business, their lives, being washed away and so as irritated and fed up as I may have been, I scrabbled for perspective.

Perspective is a tough one. There will always be someone worse off and someone better off and whilst you can sympathise and empathise and seek to understand, you can only really know your own lived experience.

But this is in part why I am so interested in the news, because in dealing with, embracing, enduring, revelling in my own life, I appreciate that window on the world to open my mind, teach me things and remind me that there are others in similar, same, better and much worse situations than me. I

t doesn’t stop a flooded road being frustrating, but it does remind me that in the midst of chuntering and muttering, because I do indulge in a chunter and mutter, that if possible, it is important to take a moment to think about a world outside ourselves and our immediate surrounds.

It can feel depressing. It is easy to feel powerless. But I do believe that as citizens in a democracy, it is important to have an idea about what is going on because if we always turn a blind eye, eventually I fear, we might stop seeing anything at all.