When I was doing clinical depression, it was almost impossible to find joy and happiness in ANYTHING, big or small. I would sit with my friends, apparently having a good time, but inside feeling sickly empty and unable to see the point or purpose in life. On the outside it looked fine; on the inside it was lonely and deeply, deeply unhappy. Because I’d lost touch with joy and happiness, I saw everything through a ‘miserable’ filter. Even when something wonderful was staring me in the face, I’d see the negative or the unhappy.

One element of the road to recover from clinical depression was starting to notice the little things, and look for the humorous, the charming, the unexpected. There was no point looking for joy because it wasn’t on my radar, and other people’s happiness just upset me more. I couldn’t even bear to be around children, because the fact I didn’t have any made me unhappy too.

I was reminded of this today, when taking a walk in the local park. Finsbury Park is not a great park, but it is a park, and it has a great 2.5 mile walk down a disused railway line running off it, where you can almost imagine you were in the country.

Being in nature is really important for me: until I was 17 I’d never lived for any length of time in a town, let alone a city. I need regular bursts of nature to keep me sane (although when I was doing depression I wouldn’t even get out of bed for a bright sunny autumn/winter day like today). At the same time, not all nature gets my vote. Grey squirrel and pigeons are definitely not loved, along with rats, house mice and cockroaches.

I have a range of running battles with the rodent population (that includes squirrels, by the way, they are rats with furry tails). Rats/mice invade my house on a regular basis, particular come winter time. Squirrels invade my garden and eat all the birdseed – or did until I found some really cunning birdseed holders. And town pigeons are just plain messy.

So there I was in Finsbury Park enjoying the trees and the leaves, and the songbirds and the ducks, when I spotted a pair of pigeons. As I walked up to the railings they were sitting on, they looked at me and failed to budge (or should that be budgie?). I walked up closer and closer, but they were so relaxed, one was dozing and the other did the stand-on-one-leg-and-stretch-wing-out=over-leg thing that birds only do when they are feeling completely unthreatened. Even my close-up flash photography had no impact.

Puzzled, I went to get a hot chocolate, and took it to a bench in a secluded bit of the park. I’d pretty much finished it, and put the top back on, when I spotted a squirrel, running along the bench on the other side of the table. It kept poking its head up, largely ignoring me. I realised it could smell the chocolate. So it began a dance to get at the chocolate, coming close and then ducking down, then coming closer. Jumping on the table, then fixing me with a long hard stare. A couple of times it grabbed the cup, but backed off, frustrated because it couldn’t get in. If I’d wanted fleas or a sharp bite I could have touched the thing. Again, close up flash photography didn’t really seem to faze it.

At which point, I couldn’t help but laugh – at the boldness of the local vermin, and my fascination with them, and at the squirrel’s little dance. And it dawned on me: nowadays even squirrels and pigeons can give me joy and happiness .I laughed even more with the sheer realisation of just how far I have come in the last 13 years or so.

So, for squirrel-fanciers everywhere, here is a highly edited video of my new found friend.