Late February Sunshine has me hoping: Spring is Coming!

There’s a week still left in February, but today is Pancake Tuesday. I no longer need to race home desperately wondering how on Earth I am going to mix, toss and serve enough pancakes to keep the kids happy, because it turns out that my Daughter is a much better pancake maker than I ever was. Sarah, you are an absolute star, because I know … Continue reading Late February Sunshine has me hoping: Spring is Coming!

Birthday Hygge: Parent and Child

Isn’t it funny how the same dates crop up time and time again in a life? How one grandparent’s birthday becomes the anniversary of another grandparent’s death? How marriages start and businesses are created on the same day? And how often, with 365 days out of the year to choose from, children choose to be born on the same day as another relative? In my … Continue reading Birthday Hygge: Parent and Child

Blue Monday? Depends on the Shade

Today is Blue Monday, and news programmes, papers and places all over the internet are proclaiming it the lowest Monday of the year. Christmas is over, the bills ahve come in, the weather is blue and we are too. Well, not this year. I’ve done well at keeping active, meeting friends who keep me boosted and enjoying life, including finding the gem of a 1930s … Continue reading Blue Monday? Depends on the Shade

Book Friday: The Happiness Year by Tara Ward (How to find Joy in Every Season)

What are your Winter Joys? In the Hygge Nook, we’ve had a few posts about Winter, especially this post-Christmas period of it, being hard on the happiness factor. And I’m quite honest that I have found it harder to be happy in January and February rather than during November and December in my past. But I do know that I have parts of Winter that … Continue reading Book Friday: The Happiness Year by Tara Ward (How to find Joy in Every Season)

A Winter Wellness List

This year so far has been a weird mix of bright sunshine and dark rain clouds, physically and metaphorically. I either feel light and airy, or weighed down by stresses so heavy I don’t know how to get out from under them. I know sometimes the weather has the guiding hand in my emotions, but at other times the warmth is there regardless of the … Continue reading A Winter Wellness List

Advent Calendars: So Much More than Chocolate.

Way, way back when I was a child, advent calendars didn’t have any chocolate pieces in. They were card, with thinly translucent paper behind doors that sometimes proved difficult to open. You could have winter scenes, with rosy-faced children on sledges or Santa working in his shirtsleeves to create rocking horses, pull-along wooden trains and dolls with improbably wavy hair or, as we used to … Continue reading Advent Calendars: So Much More than Chocolate.

29 Days to Advent…. and I’m getting ready to Celebrate!

When people say that computers don’t have a sense of humour, tell them perhaps they don’t. But they do troll people. Today is a grim, grey, cold day. Windy outside, which adds a chill to my life, and I am huddling over a single candle flame and wondering where in the house is my collection of fingerless gloves. My Cratchit Days are upon me. And … Continue reading 29 Days to Advent…. and I’m getting ready to Celebrate!

Electricity Free Evenings? No Problem.

Today’s UK news was full of the idea that, come January and February, the UK could have planned blackouts, when electricity supplies are cut to certain areas to preserve the available gas. Understandably, this sounds like a scary prospect until you sit and think about it. I think people who are into hygge are ahead of the curve on being able to handle the blackouts. … Continue reading Electricity Free Evenings? No Problem.