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How to be happy

My favourite presents to give, or receive, are books, umbrellas or wellies. I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t find joy or usefulness in any of these things!

Anyway, there have been a lot of celebrations recently, and I have spent a lot of time looking at bookshelves (apparently you can have too many wellies and brollies…). Of particular note has been how many offer assistantance in seeking happiness. How extraordinary, and endlessly fascinating that a) such books have become best sellers, b) they are restricted to one volume, and c) one is written by Fearne Cotton…

Now, I can’t decide whether I feel a bit scared, or a bit happy about this. Scared in that this could have so many implications for so many people, and really negative ones…but then again Fearne Cotton has much better hair than me, which is indicative of joy, and so who am I to question her knowledge of such a complex human emotion? On the flip side I’m happy about these ‘happy’ books because I hope (in that they aren’t overtly dictatorial), that they force or challenge thinking. It’s forced me to really think. Because eventually, when I’m a grown up, I’m going to have a job making people feel happy.

Keep it clean.

All of this has taken over my little mental world of late, and has increased a burning desire to going travelling tenfold (I am never far away from chronic wanderlust), but specifically to visit Bhutan. For a start it’s in one of my favourite parts of the world, but it also rules by GNH, or ‘Gross National Happiness’; an official index which influences policy with the ultimate goal of achieving a smiling population. I need to read up more because I’m not sure how successful it is, or how they even go about, but I love the bravado of this tiny country looking at how the rest of the world works, and just going….'”nope”. They are working at it from the inside.

Which is I’m being kinder than I actually feel about the proliferation of these ‘happy’ books, because at least they are a start. We may have been lumbered with Theresa, but at Fearne is having a bash on our behalf. A revolution could start at Waterstones.

I’m not too sure where I’m going to be honest with this bizarre ramble, other than that ‘happiness’ is massive, and I don’t always understand it, but I love to feel it, and I’m fast learning that saying ‘nope’ can sometimes actually help achieve it, and the rest, well, it definitely is an inside job.

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Important opinions on fish

I have never felt a compulsion to own fish. They are really pretty to look at, but then so is a nice vase, or that calendar with the Firemen on; yet neither of those things require feeding or a noisy pump.

Actually, I guess actual Firemen require both of those things, but that’s ok because I really like their shiny poles.

Having fish must just be like having a permanent screen saver.

This morning I was contemplating that I would really like to make a career out of blogging. I then thought that perhaps first I should try and refine my phraseology, whilst my punctuation and grammar can also be embarrassingly sloppy, but having revised the above, I’m feeling ‘engaging subject matter’ should maybe be my priority…

And strike ‘Practical Fishkeeping’ off the list of people to apply to. And put ‘Firefighter Magazine’ at the top.

It’s a journey.

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Sometimes not much happens

Sometimes not much happens. This has been one of those times.

You are always learning stuff though. This week I have learnt that mental preoccupation can mean that you spend a whole day, including expeditions outside the house, with only one sock on – initially because you can’t mentally cope with putting the other one on, then latterly because you forget where it is.

I have also learnt that sometimes sadness can lead to an unexpected motivation to make rock cakes, happiness can make you volunteer to organise a Suffragette event, and always be prepared to rediscover an AMAZING old favourite tune via the tannoy in Dunelm Mill.

The small one is also a font of knowledge. In my advancing years I am definitely more cynical than I would like, but this ‘5 years a human being’ is an absolute pro at keeping me check. “Why is that little boy crying Mummy?”, (observing a tantrum in full swing), “I think he’s not getting his own way my Darling”, “Oh… well maybe he’s feeling poorly and he thought that lolly was some medicine?”

Maybe the future isn’t quite as bleak as everyone seems to make out.

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Repeating numbers

Every now again, I have these times where I’m really aware of the frequency and consistency my attention is drawn to repeating numbers. I’ll notice this most when I’m checking the time; it will be 14:14 on the clock, but then the next time I get a chance to look it will be 14:41, and then 15:15….

This pattern will also be on the time stamps of messages, on signs, on things I get through the post, on buses that drive past! And it’s not even here and there either, it will literally be one thing after another!

So weird.

If you Google the phenomenon, apparently it could be the universe trying to tell me something, or I’m on the cusp of an auspicious event. That would be nice. I haven’t particularly got my belief system nailed down yet, but I think it pays to be open minded about things, just in case. I mean, it would be sad to dismiss something just because you don’t understand it, or it doesn’t make sense, because then you could be missing out.

So universe, do what you will…but, seriously, how long did it take some product designer to come up with a container that holds exactly 888ml of washing liquid?

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IKEA

I just come here for therapy now.

You can also buy a ‘Slappa’ in a choice of colours.

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Springy things

If I was running a GP practice, I would set aside a reasonable budget for growbags, seeds and bulbs for my patients, because they are quite literally the equivalent of health insurance. I really don’t understand how anyone wouldn’t feel just a tad bouncy if they planted something and ‘ta da’, up pops something stunning, and living, and good for everyone and everything, and it’s really easy to do!?

These bobby dazzlers are out and making my bay window border a bit spesh, and I’ve got some irises and snowdrops on the way by the looks of things. Yay!

I’m getting a bit preachy, but the joy of writing to yourself is no one cares, and you don’t have to watch as the ‘real people’ glaze over. Genius.

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Simon and Garfunkel

A generation apart, mi’ Mum and I both got to re-live the same period of our youth, simultaneously, whilst watching the same band. Would that be something paradoxical? I don’t know if that’s right, but it was cool anyway.

Growing up we only had two tapes in our car, ‘The Animals’ which was Dad’s jam, and Mum’s ageing copy of ‘The definitive Simon and Garfunkel’ which never had a case. The equitable nature of my parent’s marriage meant that Simon and Garfunkel was essentially the soundtrack of my youth, and certainly linked to every childhood memory I have of family holidays, sat in the back of Dad’s red Citreon BX, eating something Mum had packed for us in tin foil, trying not to touch the actual food having had to stop at another one of France’s unfathomable roadside long-drop loos, and trying to revive one’s nostrils afterwards by squirting coconut Soltan on them.

Good times.

Anyway, so I bought Mum tickets to see ‘The Simon and Garfunkel Story’ for Christmas because, well, it’s part of our history, and it was everything I hoped it would be – all the classics, top band with cracking blokes as ‘Arty’ and Paul, and the whole back story of how the duo came to be. Mum re-lived the music from the first time round, and I got the chance to get down with my bad ’60s self in a slightly ‘recycled’ kind of a way…

Unexpectedly, it also reawakened my occasionally reoccurring ‘militant repressed hippy’ tendency. I get this every once in a while when I slip into my philosophical ‘what’s this all about’ mode. I found myself saying things like ‘this was real music, about things that actually mattered’ and ‘music these days just doesn’t bring people together like it used to’, to random strangers in the ice cream queue. Which is pretty embarrassing. It probably isn’t that true either, my musical knowledge doesn’t greatly extend beyond ‘The wheels on the bus’ anymore, and I had had a couple of large glasses of wine by this point, but still – I was feeling it, and kinda stand by it.

I do however also have a bit of a romance with the 60’s and 70’s. It felt like lots was changing in the world, and that most people had a view about that – which I greatly respect, and everything seemed culturally less ego-centric, and more of the music was about ‘something’, and lyrics were heartbreakingly poetic, and didn’t rhyme with ‘booty’, and critically, ‘Adele’ hadn’t been dumped yet.

It was a classic night anyway, in the company of my lovely Mum, the show was fantastic, if you get the chance to, go see it, it will knock your socks off!

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Ducks and mistakes

Do you ever buy someone else a present, for yourself? I do. I love these ducks.

Also loving Netflix. Of the TV I watch now, very little is live. The Netflix accounts in our house are markedly gender specific. You go into Neil’s and all the fonts are black and red and the programmes are called ‘Narcos’ or ‘Last Man Standing’, and mine are all pink and purple with happy looking people getting married, going shopping, or if the programme is worth my attention, both. I happily admit I love the bubble of crap TV.

I also have a certain fondness for the wildcard selection you get down at the bottom, and every now and then I choose anything without looking at the title or the description. This has mixed results, but occasionally you get the odd gem, and tonight I got one of those. It was mega cheesy (so totally my bag), about a woman who was trying to write her obituary before she died. She was a horrible woman, but with a good taste in music – she thought ‘The Kinks’ were one of the most underrated bands of all time – my Dad would agree. There was one line in the whole thing that particularly appealed; ‘you don’t make mistakes, mistakes make you’. I like that. I was once told ‘if you can’t change something, change how you think about it’, and that feels of a similar ilk. It’s about reframing.

Wow, and on that profound and cheesy note, fitting to my Netflix algorithm, it’s time for bed.