How simple is simple?

Several articles and books I’ve read have quite expensive things listed as ‘what you need to bring  hygge into your house this year’ (Mail on Sunday, I’m looking at you!) and I’ve already talked about the fact that so many things listed as necessary for hygge either aren’t, or are available much cheaper elsewhere or have homemade alternatives in How to Hygge When There’s too Much Month Left and Not Enough Paycheck.

Hygge isn’t an expensive fad, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. If hygge costs more than a cup of coffee or a carefully chosen item of furniture that you needed and wanted and that will bring you joy for untold years… well, you get what I’m saying again here. Hygge isn’t about consumption, whether conspicuous or ever so tastefully done. Hygge comes from a nation where the Industrial Revolution didn’t really take hold until the 1870s (almost 100 years after the UK) and the industrial workforce didn’t overtake the agrarian workforce until the 1950s.

Simplicity is part of the DNA in the agricultural families that I know. They are trained from birth to save money, because it’s such a tricky business and needs every penny to be carefully used or stored against the bad year that history  (or Grandad in the corner) tells them will come.  So it makes sense to enjoy the simple things in life, because the expensive things may never come.

So today I am starting a list of what makes a simple pleasure for me. I am going to keep this as a simple post here and add it as a page to the top menu of my blog. And I’m opening it out to members of the Hygge Nook, and asking them what their favourite simple pleasures are. Share if you like it, follow if you like me. Copy and keep your own list of the simple pleasures of life.

Simple Pleasures to enjoy

1. A warm cup of tea after being out in the rain.
2. 10 minutes to read alone.
3. Watching an episode of my favourite drama
4. Playing Cards Against Humanity with the teenagers
5. A bubble bath
6. Drinking cool prosecco and eating a small chocolate bar
7. Visiting the cinema to see a film
8. Watching a DVD at home with the family and making popcorn
9. Walking in Autumn and kicking the leaves about
10. Getting wet in the rain on the way home and having a warm shower
11. Finding a five pound note in an old bag and getting a coffee with it
12. Having a coffee with my husband after we finish the weekly shop
13. Drawing a picture
14. Going to the beach and finding seaglass
15. Visiting a museum or art gallery without any children so I can stop and look at what suits me
16. People watching
17. Bookclub
18. Crocheting a blanket
19. Roasting pork and sharing the crackling with the kids
20. Using green pen in my planner
21. Getting my Mum something she wants and taking it to her.