FROM THE wettest drought to the Heathrow queues, to the general incompetence of the government and naturally, Cherie Blair, there are plenty of things in this country which majorly annoy.

Then there are the medium vexations. You know, like delivery firms who sincerely believe that requiring a woman to remain indoors from the hours of 7am to 7pm so she can receive a parcel is a sound business model for the 21st century.

Or developers who trash a woodland and everything in it and then name the resulting collection of brick monstrosities as ‘Badgers Copse’ when it should really be entitled ‘Was Badger’s Copse’.

Baby showers, losing a filling and pranging the car fall into this category, as does sushi, middle-aged women getting tattoos, nose studs, dog poo, Eccles cakes (why?), getting chewing gum on your jumper when you never chew the stuff, 50mph speed limits on dual carriageways where you should be allowed to do 60mph, Louboutin shoes (especially when worn by those with unsuitable legs) and everything written by Jeffrey Archer.

But just recently I’ve become aware that there is another layer of this stuff, micro annoyances; things that don’t ruin your day but mysteriously infuriate out of all proportion to the harm they cause.

Like people who take the last biscuit and leave the empty wrapping in the pantry cupboard in the sure and certain knowledge that YOU will chuck it away. Ditto the office phantom-milk person who leaves a millimetre’s worth of the white stuff in the bottom of the bottle, presumably so they don’t have to go to the Titanic bother of transferring the empty one to the bin.

Another of these nanoyances are those ladies who stand blankly in the checkout queue for a good eight minutes before looking astonished when asked to produce their debit card and then start ferreting around in their handbag intoning the fatal words: ‘It’s in here somewhere’.

Looking out to see people I don’t know from Adam parking in front of my house, or even in front of my parents’ house, gets my goat, as does the discovery there is only one green Fruit Pastille in the packet but three orange ones.

Finding a hole in your favourite pair of socks, people who step into Markies and then stop dead while they decide whether to visit gents’ underwear before the food hall, or, equally, leave Markies and hover on the pavement make me lightly grind my teeth.

But generally nanoyances are nearly always to do with thwarted expectation, like finding out you’re having pasta with red pesto, instead of green, for dinner.

Or discovering that the jacket which looked so good on your sister/best friend/Kate Middleton only looks ‘okay’ on you.

When you realise that the jersey/ coat/frock you have coveted from the pages of your fave mag is, in fact, made from the kind of fabric you just don’t like touching because it feels a bit cheap, that’s a nanoyance.

As is your husband insisting on rolling up his jeans at the ankles (and thus looking like a simpleton) because ‘I hate things round my ankles’. (But he’s quite happy for the Enormous Ginger Cat to creep round his ankles, isn’t he?) Then there’s getting stuck next to the political party bore at the posh dinner party, rather than the racy-looking architect who you hoped to tap up for a free bit of advice on your verandah, or spotting an ex-boyfriend in the Co-op but him not noticing you, even though you look much better than you did when he dumped you.

Travelling all the way to IKEA to purchase a specific cushion which they now don’t have, worse still, seeing another woman with the last one in her trolley, breaking your watch-strap, getting the oil warning light precisely two minutes after you’ve joined the M27 and not having blueberries with your breakfast won’t ruin your day.

But it makes it feel wrong and the only comfort is knowing that I am not alone. “I don't have pet peeves like some people, I have whole kennels of irritation,” is how Whoopi Goldberg puts it.

Quite right. Mind you, she doesn’t half get on my nerves as well.