I never forget how lucky I am.

I grew up in a safe home, I went to good schools, I was even given the choice of sixth form by my parents who respected me enough to enter into an agreement with me whereby I would work hard and get the grades they wanted of me if I went to the school of my choice rather than theirs. So I did.

I always worked hard, yet do not deny there have been hiccups and tears along the way; I’m divorced and renting again, neither of which I foresaw when engaged and buying the anticipated “dream flat” a few years ago. But I worked harder still and walked out of that situation unscathed, with the debts paid off, and put myself to work hard at a new endeavour and start afresh.

And what a fresh start this is. What a world view this life gives me!

I’ve mentioned it before, yet I can’t repeat enough, how incredible it was to see the night sky slowly but awesomely filled with stars and planets on a night watch a few weeks ago. How mind boggling, spine tingling and all those other ways to describe the feeling that you are seeing something materialise in front of your eyes, which you knew, somehow never really appreciated before.

We are so miniscule. Our issues, our personal problems, our dilemmas which we feel are so unique and so pivotal are in fact minute. Our world is one of an unimaginable number, we are each one tiny part of a planet which makes a tiny piece of a percent of this universe.

But sadly for so many of us the world is constrained to the mundane; the commute, the bills, the chores, the debts.

The fact that I now have the ability and opportunity to sit 60 miles offshore, in the depths of night, on a yacht sailing across the ocean. That I can take the time to stare up, and beyond, to think and appreciate, makes me even luckier still.