Having just returned from a holiday in the frontier-land of the Yukon, one of Canada’s most isolated territories, I actually felt like I’d never left after reading the story about the Botley OAP who beat up a knife-wielding burglar.

Being my first day back, and suffering those post-vacation blues that cripple most of us as we clear Passport Control and step back into our everyday lives, it’s fair to say I was feeling grim.

But like a bright, glowing halo at the end of a long dark tunnel, pensioner Frank Corti’s actions transported me straight back to the pioneering spirit of Dawson City and Whitehorse.

There of course, amid the pines and bears where men are men and 4x4s sport stubble, they’d doubtless have strung up the felon by his boots. But here in genteel Oxford, it was still comforting to see a return to good old fashioned justice – especially as the crook not only got a black-eye but jail for aggravated burglary.

So thank you Mr Corti – you helped put a smile on my face when I needed it most.

Interestingly, and this too had everything to do with my return to work, I found myself focusing on my will.

An ad in the Oxford Mail I read suggested ‘There is one small job that you have been meaning to do for years...’ And that was right enough – I last made my will years ago when the people I had generously made provision for were still on my Christmas card list.

But times change and it got me thinking as to who I should now bequeath my current debts and outstanding loans to, because not unnaturally, friends and family fall in and out of favour.

Sitting down, I made a list and three hours later (and 100 names richer), felt I had dished up my own form of justice (not quite as ‘in-yer-face’ as Mr Corti’s but just as satisfying nonetheless).

Now clearly the whole point of a will is that you actually entrust something of either emotional or financial value to those you leave behind, but as I don’t ‘own’ anything (the bank does), it seemed the perfect opportunity to exact revenge on all those who clearly no longer wish to remember me during the yuletide season.

As such, for me, this simple exercise helped put a lot of ‘ghosts’ to rest. And to those who will now inherit my liabilities and home furnishings arrears, you should at least feel touched that, if nothing else, you always earned more than me (which is why I befriended you in the first place).

Finally, the other factor that helped raise my spirits in a week when all I longed for was to simply turn back the clock, was the survey showing that residents here in Oxford are generally happier than people elsewhere.

I know I am.

Yes, coming back came with a bump, but nothing like as hard a bump as the one I used to feel when returning from holiday to Swindon or Middlesbrough. I mean, seriously, imagine it...

At least on the bus back from Heathrow to this city, it’s usually packed with excited tourists who have dreamt – and saved – so they can wander down Cornmarket.

And that always comforts me.