Alison Craig: Buck the trend so we all come up smiling

My back is killing me. It is. I put it out on Christmas Day and had to spend the big day itself alone on the couch as I couldn’t walk at all.

My family went out and had a lovely festive carry on with friends as we had planned, and I just lay there like a stone with the dogs, a bunch of bananas to eat, a jug of water to drink, watching It’s A Wonderful Life and feeling pathetically sorry for myself.

The highlight of my day was the 30 minutes it took for me to roll off the couch and crawl through to the loo (too much information, sorry) and the next 30 minutes to crawl back to the prone position for the rest of the day.

Of course, the moral of It’s A Wonderful Life is “life is great, get a grip”, so I did. Well, until Boxing Day when, still on the couch, I watched Marley & Me with my mum.

Towards the end of the film both of us were openly snottering and sobbing when the door opened and in came the long-suffering husband, who took one look at us and retreated to the kitchen to pour a couple of large glasses of wine . . . which he drank before delivering one each for us and retreating again until we had regained a modicum of self control.

He had to wait some time as you will understand only too well if you’ve seen the film. Bloomin’ dog.

Anyway, Boxing Day then deteriorated further as Howies Waterloo Place was broken into, so David had to go off and meet the police to sort all that out.

By the time Hogmanay arrived, things had improved so off we went to Elie for the night. By goodness, it was wild. So wild the dogs wouldn’t even go for a walk on the beach.

The sand blew into our eyes and into their ears and they just headed for the hills but not before doing their business. Being a responsible dog owner I aye have poo bags on me, and this was no exception.

I carefully lowered myself down, watching my back carefully to scoop the dreaded poo. It was at this point it took off in the wind. It did.

This thing started nudging along the beach so I scuttled forward and, as I reached again, it was off. The upshot was I ended up running along the beach with my arm outstretched trying to catch an airborne dog poo. In fact, I estimate it covered 100 metres in about 12.3 seconds, which I intend to Google and find out if it would give Usain Bolt a run for his money.

Since then, I have been taking it easy as my super duper back man, David Robson, doesn’t return until tomorrow, and tonight we are preparing for the We Will Rock You cast and crew party at Howies Waterloo.

Organising the do is no problem – it’s the flashbacks I am having of the last time I met them all.

We Will Rock You had just opened for the first time in Edinburgh and they had their first-night celebration at Harvey Nichols. I still blush uncontrollably at what happened.

Being a huge Queen fan, I couldn’t resist going to have a blether with Brian May, a real live Rock God. As I was chatting to him the long suffering-husband came up and decided to take a photo of us together.

He pointed and pressed, holding the camera focused somewhere on the naval area, looking up my nostrils and – I knew – making my head look like a vast cavern of fat. So I asked him to take another one but this time with the camera held higher to hide my double chins.

As we discussed this, I was quite taken aback when Brian May got a hold of my chubby under chin flab and held it aloft for the photo. Mortified. From Fat Bottomed Girls to droopy chinned Aberdonians . . .

So, anyway, I digress. The closing night for this run of the show is with us, the other end of the financial scale from Harvey Nix, but so what? Food is food, drink is drink and you pay a lot on top of your cocktail for that panoramic view of Edinburgh – and it’s dark anyway, so will they really care?

People are now far more prudent with their spending, of course, but life goes on. People need to eat, laugh, meet friends, chill out, distract themselves from the constant doom and gloom being reported on the news.

If I see or hear any more bad news I will swing for whoever delivers it. I will. Whatever happened to the art of positive thinking? The “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative” way of looking at the world?

So, courtesy of It’s a Wonderful Life, can I just venture that if you are reading this then that’s a good start. Any day six feet above ground is better than one six feet below. So, come on – let’s buck up and get on with it.

Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone – or get a clip round the lug in my house. So don’t. Happy New Year.