Another spring, another photograph of my favourite bluebell woods in full bloom – and a reminder that it’s over a year since I started writing my blog.  I’ve been silent for a while, not quite knowing how to write about happiness at a time of sorrow, as news of three friends coping with sudden and shocking bereavements has reached me over the last couple of months.

I guess we all fool ourselves that we are in control of our lives, until something so harsh and unexpected confronts us with the truth – that we really don’t know what tomorrow holds for certain.  Our human need to make sense of things, to understand and piece together the jigsaw, is challenged when life is shattered so suddenly.  We have so many questions, yet there are no easy answers.    Continue reading →

My younger son left home four months ago. 🙁 Time for some positive thinking! 🙂

• He’s on cloud nine living with his clever and talented girlfriend.
• He’s moved to Edinburgh, my favourite city – yet another good reason to visit.
• Free sofa bed during the Fringe – whoop whoop!

Sigh . . . that’s enough of that, we all know that true happiness requires honesty, and the honest truth is that I miss him terribly. I miss hearing him singing and playing his wonderful music in the next room while I’m cooking.  I miss his enthusiastic book recommendations (and yes, I promise I’ll read The Picture of Dorian Gray).  I miss the way he always kept his bedroom spotlessly clean and tidy.*  And while Edinburgh may be only three hours away, that’s three hours too far to pop round for a coffee – and it’s still in a foreign country isn’t it?    Continue reading →

Do you enjoy planning and looking forward to a special event with a warm tingle of anticipation, setting an intention for future happiness?  Do you look back over favourite photo albums, listen to music you loved in the past, or reminisce about joyful memories, and re-experience the positive emotions they evoked at the time?  Or do you live in the moment and focus on simply being happy in the here and now?  Perhaps it’s a mixture of all three!

I’ve been musing on these questions while thumbing through a copy of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe brochure – as usual, satisfyingly thick and crammed with temptations – while planning my annual visit.  I first went in 2005 and loved the bustling city so much that I vowed I’d return every August to make up for all the years I hadn’t.  Pondering which of my unmissable favourites I need tickets for, and which undiscovered delights I might be swayed by – hmm, man in koala suit playing the ukulele? – started me wondering what it would be like if we weren’t able to visualise the future or remember the past.    Continue reading →

Allow me to introduce you to the Happy Wolf!  There, you’re smiling already, aren’t you?

I met the Happy Wolf quite recently, on a visit to Leeds City Museum.  As soon as I saw this wonderful creation I burst out laughing, which was no doubt very disrespectful of me when confronted by a work of art dating from the 3^rd century. It’s a large floor mosaic discovered in the Yorkshire village of Aldborough, depicting the legend of twin brothers Romulus and Remus. They were the founders of Rome, who were abandoned as babies but found by a kindly she-wolf, who fed them and saved them from death.

If you get the chance, do go see the Happy Wolf.  You’ll be charmed, like me, by her round button eyes and broad friendly grin (despite the rows of pointy teeth).  I love the coquettish way she crosses her front legs.  I love the fact that her hind-quarters quite obviously belong to another animal altogether.  I love that the artists didn’t even attempt to depict any fussy wolf-teat / suckling business in tiny pieces of coloured stone – and who can blame them? – but instead opted to show the twins joyously jamming together on air-guitars.  In fact, I love everything about the Happy Wolf.

I wonder how the mosaic-makers felt on the completion of this masterpiece.  Did they step back to view their hybrid wolf-cat-pony with a puzzled frown, a little crestfallen that something wasn’t quite right? Oh for a Tardis to whizz back a few centuries and reassure them!  I’d love to say, ‘Please don’t change a thing – you have no idea how much someone a couple of thousand years into the future is going to love her exactly the way she is.  I’ve even got her picture set as a screensaver on my computer . . .’  No wait, think that last bit’s tricky even with a Latin dictionary.   Continue reading →

Many years ago on a counselling course, I remember the tutor saying that while it was a good thing to be proud of ourselves and our achievements, it wasn’t on to be proud of other people, for example our children.

Now, I have two observations on this: a) he wasn’t a father himself, and b) I think it would be hard to stop!

I am blessed with two brilliant and talented sons, who often play in public (one as a magician and street performer, one as a singer and musician).  So it’s not uncommon to  find myself in the front row, bursting with pride and graciously receiving compliments on their behalf from the audience.

Now, thinking about it, perhaps my old tutor had a point – after all, my boys’ accomplishments are sadly not due to any entertainer’s genes inherited from me, but rather down to personal motivation and long hours hidden away in their bedrooms honing their skills (at least, I think that’s what they were doing).

Continue reading →