How much do we really need to keep us happy?

What do I want for Christmas? What does a man need?

Years ago I worked with male teenage Travellers alongside a man who taught them (and me) about how to become the human we wanted to be.

“Self knowledge is completely useless, Charlie,” he’d explain, “unless you do something about it.”

Last Spring I realised that I was exhausted, and actually changed my behaviour patterns. In the past I’d feel beholden to pummel on regardless, until I became ill or depressed or both. Instead, learning a little bit from my past, I tried to cut myself some slack and ease up on the pressure. Any self-employed person will tell you how difficult it is to do that, but I did it.

Then I started buying myself things. Not frivolous nonsense of the kind that’s recently so irritatingly advertised on the radio as ‘gone when it’s gone’. No, I invested in myself and feel all the better for it.

I bought a pair of good boots. With a couple of skewed discs and a dodgy knee carrying an unnaturally large body weight, my plates of meat take a battering, so good boots are essential.

In the past I’ve bought the same boots every year, which last just under a year. This time I went out and bought good boots, handmade by a small company in Yorkshire. Admittedly there was some woe in the tale, as the first pair of good boots I bought were handmade by a company in Germany.

According to online reviews posted by ex-squaddies, these boots were the best boots a man could buy. I felt ex-squaddies would be good judges, but hadn’t reckoned on my feeble middle-class body.

Blisters the size of Cyprus left me limping and stumbling until I had to relent and took the boots back. Upon seeing the state of my plates, the woman in the shop was overcome with empathy and agreed to exchange them for me, even though they were now beyond resale.

These boots I love. They hold me up and allow me to follow Lady Dog through flooded bog and boreen. I’ve a good chair. It’s a proper size for one such as me and I ordered it with the hardest arse cushion they had available. Then I ordered a spare arse cushion for it, knowing how much of a beating this chair will take.

To read Charlie's column in full, please see this week's Galway City Tribune.