I attended an Autumn Wellbeing Workshop at the park near my house on Saturday. I booked it on a whim back in July, apparently. It offered “a relaxed Shared Reading session led by an experienced practitioner before an autumnal walk in Calderstones Park, a warming drink back at the Mansion House and the opportunity to build a poetry collection to take home.” How could I resist?

It must be a few years since I last took a day out for something as unpractical as poetry. Somehow the last few years of parenting (children and parents) haven’t left many free Saturdays or even free time on a Saturday to stop and pause. That’s my own fault. If I, as a hygge ambassador, don’t enforce space, time and slowing down I really cannot expect those around me to say “Jo, take the day off and go for coffee, soup and a stroll in a small group of lovely people”. I should do it more often.

Calderstones Park near me has the most beautiful mansion that has been renovated and provides a home for The Reader, a charity dedicated to the promotion of reading alone or in a group as a great way to handle life, stresses, health and loneliness. They have a fabulous cafe, regular reading groups and events throughout the year. Like I say, I went on an Autumn wellbeing event run by Jamie, who was brilliant.

The room we used was cosy, with tea and coffee freely available. The group was small: only four participants and Jamie leading, but since 5 is a prime number for hygge, size really wasn’t an issue.

And the time there was hyggely. There is something about the sharing of words, reading in short story, excerpt or poetry form, that encourages a lowering of barriers, a sharing of the most dreadful secrets and fast building of companionships. Certainly (without giving any of them away) by the end of the day you have a small cohort who have shared future plans, past hurts and present worries. Poetry can do that.

We started, though, with the short story The Last Leaf by O Henry. Shared reading means just that, with someone reading the text aloud to share it in parts depending on length and then time to digest, consider and discuss the sections. What words appeal? What do passages mean? What feelings arise in the listener? I don’t mean this to sound like the kind of dissecting of metaphor, tone or character that one does in school, perhaps. The responses are more visceral, personal. I feel and it seems rather than I think and it is.

With a rather tasty swede and apple soup followed by lemon drizzle cake (did I mention they have a fabulous cafe on site? Lunch was provided in the room by them) and plenty of coffee, we passed the day in a pleasant way. We meandered from poem to poem, from margin to caesura to laguna and back, echoed by wandering in the park itself, ducking drops from the yellowing trees and pausing in places to exclaim over maple’s bright hues, nests of gifted acorns or the shadows of puddles in the path.

When life is too hard for a novel, too crushed for a saga, then poetry fills a space. Good poetry expands to fill the space available. Excellent poetry forces its way into your daily life and you find yourself, three days later, running over the half-remembered phrases. Or suddenly looking up the life story of the poet. What did he mean? What was she saying? Why did they stop at that point?

My poem, from Saturday’s session, was Everything is Going to Be Alright by Derek Mahon.

Everything is Going to be All Right
Derek Mahon

How should I not be glad to contemplate 
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window 
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling? 
There will be dying, there will be dying, 
but there is no need to go into that. 
The poems flow from the hand unbidden 
and the hidden source is the watchful heart. 
The sun rises in spite of everything 
and the far cities are beautiful and bright. 
I lie here in a riot of sunlight 
watching the day break and the clouds flying. 
Everything is going to be all right. 

How can you not be silenced by that? It’s keeping me fully occupied. And feeding my soul every bit as much as the lemon drizzle cake fed my stomach.

I am definitely going to become a regular at the weekend sessions and special events. I’ve already booked my place on the Bronte Christmas Afternoon on 6th December. A solitary treat. Self care of the very most selfish kind. And I don’t feel even a little bit guilty.

How to Hygge the British Way is my gift to the world. I don’t get paid for writing it, I’m not in it for the kudos, financial rewards, to become an influencer, work with brands or otherwise make any money from the blog. That’s why there are no ads, and any products I mention and recommend have either been gifted to me or bought by me with my everyday wages or donations from supporters. Every book I review has been bought and read by me, unless stated otherwise.

I do get a couple of pennies each time someone buys from the Amazon links on my page, as an Amazon Affiliate, but otherwise if you’d like to support me, I like to give something back in return. That’s why I write books. It always feels good if you get a book back in return for some money. You can find a full list of my books at my Author’s Page on Amazon, but especially recommended for this time of year are my Christmas books:

 Have Yourself a Happy Hygge Christmas is a good place to start, on how to make the season cosier, happier and more personal. Using the principles of hygge (simplicity, handmade, home-based) it aims to encourage you to craft a Christmas rather than dive into the Same Old Same Old without a thought. September and October is a good time to reconsider teh celebration before racing into December and the season of overconsumption hits.

 Enjoying a Self-Care Christmas may be a faster and easier read. It has short lists of ways to cut Christmas preparation to the bones, along with a kind of advent calendar of simple, free and easy self-care activities to remind you that taking time out for yourself is no bad thing. It is only available as an e-book.

My non-Christmas books are also available, of course:

Cosy Happy Hygge: Setting up a rhythm to life and rituals to enjoy it to make for a more balanced life that handles waves and storms better. The book has small and easy ways to make your life flow with grace and happiness, which lead to more hygge.

Happier: Probably my most personal book, it’s the story of how I used hygge and the little things in life to help boost my happiness. I still go back and reread to remind myself what I need to do to be a happy human. And it’s always the little things.

I’m currently working on two book projects: I have a hankering to rewrite 50 Ways to Hygge the British Way, so it’s not available at the moment, but even dearer to my heart and my next stated aim is to finish and publish my next book, Simple Plus Cosy = Hygge. It will be about homemaking and how the home we create shapes the hygge we have. Hopefully it will be finished by the end of Winter 2026.

If you’d like to support me, but don’t want to buy a book, I have a Paypal.Me account as Hygge Jem. Every little helps, so even a few pence goes towards the books, goods and courses I use and recommend on the site. I’m grateful for every little bit that brings me closer to my dream of full-time writing, and I know I couldn’t still be writing if it weren’t for the support of many readers and friends out there. Thank you all for every little bit of support, emotional, physical and financial, you give me.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, don’t forget to share it or save it so others can enjoy reading, thinking about and living hygge as well.

The photo between post and promotions is from my camera roll, a bench in my local park one weekend. I love the autumnal feel, the wet path and the couple of stray leaves resting on the seat before their inevitable plunge to the floor.