101 YEARS OLD AND STILL APPRECIATES APPRECIATION...

EXCUSE me if I seem a bit rushed but today is shaping up to be rather busy, if my diary of appreciation and awareness events is anything to go by.

First of all, it is Cow Appreciation Day. This was started in the United States a few years ago and I feel sure will spread to the UK if it has not done so already as we are definitely a cowloving country. As soon as I saw this however I began to wonder what is the best way to appreciate a cow.

Will it be enough to give silent thanks to cows as I chew on a hunk of slow-cooked beef or add milk to my tea and coffee, or should I wander into the fields where they are grazing to let the cows known that I appreciate them?

Then I saw that July 10 is also Don’t Step On A Bee Day. Will not going out into a field to greet a cow make it more likely that I will step on a bee than if I stayed at home? Will the cows not feel unappreciated if I stay in? Will they understand my motives? If I send them a message that I shall be unable to appreciate them in person for fear of stepping on a bee, will they understand?

To make things still worse, I noticed that today is Teddy Bear’s Picnic Day, on which we are all invited to take our favourite stuffed toy and a hamper of goodies and set off for a picnic. But if I go down to the woods today, what if the surprise that awaits me is stepping on a bee? And what if my picnic includes beef sandwiches? This will not endear me to the cows, even if one might argue that it is an undeniable way of demonstrating my appreciation.

The final complication came with the realisation that this is also Piña Colada Day. As soon as I saw this, my first thought was to include a flagon or two of white rum, coconut cream and pineapple juice in my picnic basket but I could not escape from the idea that drinking a couple of piña coladas would probably increase my chance of stepping on a bee and might also give a wrong impression of my normal level of sobriety to any cow that I meet.

Indeed, the use of coconut cream could well alienate a cow which would prefer to see its own dairy products used in such a cocktail. Indeed, I believe there is a drink called the “rum cow”, containing rum, milk, vanilla and sometimes other ingredients such as angostura bitters and nutmeg, which may be drunk hot or cold. Imbibing such a concoction on Piña Colada Day however would be most inappropriate.

The more I think about all this, the more I realise that we have allowed the appreciation days, awareness weeks and suchlike celebrations to romp too freely through our calendar causing far too many potentially troublesome clashes.

It is surely time to follow the lead of Govia Thameslink and bring in new timetables for Awareness Days, which will result in widespread cancellations until they are reduced to manageable numbers. We will then introduce two new events: Awareness Week Awareness Week, to reverse the trend of such weeks not being noticed, and Blissful Unawareness Week, when we can ignore cows, bees, teddy bears and piña coladas to our hearts’ content.