Happiness is....

A list of some of the little joys in life. In no particular order of wonderfulness.

• Shaved legs and clean sheets. In my very humble opinion shaved legs on men is rather un-sexy. I feel sorry for them though, missing out on that indescribable feeling of sliding your smooth pins under fresh linen.

• Silence. Not the awkward type, or that heavy, enforced library silence, or even the type imbued with fear and the faint smell of panic that you only get during an exam. Rather what is left when you turn everything off. When everyone in the house goes out, and you're left, alone, with only the soft hum of your harddrive and the tap of the keys as you write. Heaven.

• A really proper hard days work, where you've pushed yourself to the very limits of your being. Where you're both mentally and physically exhausted. An ice cold pint, it must be ice cold, and it must be your most favourite beer. The surroundings are of the utmost importance. In winter a cosy bar, with a real fire if possible. In summer a proper beer garden, with benches and flowers. Proper company, people who know your darkest secrets, or with whom you would never hesitate to share them.

• Finding the absolute perfect something for someone. Something that screams their name when you see it sitting on the shelf. Packaging it lovingly, ribbons and all. Seeing their face as they open it, it's theirs and it's so very them. I have a bit of a thing about getting people the perfect "them" presents. It means more I think, it means you listened, you thought about it, you know them, you didn't just spend.

• The feeling of sunshine on your skin. It's not the healthiest thing in the world, but it feels lovely. It's rare we get it in Ireland but when we do, out we go, half naked to bask in it. I'm not much of a sunbather, I don't stay still easily and I don't tan. I go red, and then slightly less transparent than I was before, but my tan originates in a bottle, and rarely ends up on my skin, far too much trouble. I still go out and stand in it for a bit, feeling the heat on my skin, before I run for the factor 50.

• Accidental hilarity. Especially the kind that's almost impossible to recount. The 'you had to be there' variety. Last week Rock god stood in our garden and exclaimed "Me brack!!" (Smarty pants and I had eaten his brack) We laughed 'til tears rolled down our faces. We repeated it at opportune moments when exclamation was required. We got plenty of mileage out of it but I can hardly imagine you're rolling about clutching your sides on reading about it. It's the best kind of hilarity really, even if it means nothing to anyone else.

• Going shopping alone. I have a love-hate relationship with shopping. I don't fit in a box in general as far as personalities go, I'm a statistician's nightmare. I'm not girly particularly nor am I anywhere near tomboyish. I get bored shopping, or stressed, or just crestfallen. I love to go alone however, with nothing in particular to shop for and a few spare euro in my pocket. Wandering, looking at everything, finding something different, book shopping, dvd shopping. Treating myself to a hot chocolate half way through and having lunch with myself. I remember being spotted one day having lunch with myself in town by some particularly unsavoury fellow pupils. When I came into school on Monday it was seen to be the most embarrassing thing imaginable. I pitied them terribly for never having had the pleasure of their own company for lunch.

• Tea tea tea, how do I love thee, let me count the ways. Actually no, that would take far too long. There's nothing like a cup of tea, it solves all things. No matter how bad a situation there's nothing so bad as can't be improved by a brew.

• Jinx!! Or to those too grown up, saying the exact same thing at the exact same time as someone else. I love when it happens, but especially if it's something completely incidental and not just something that naturally follows. Bananas!! That sort of thing.

• Having nothing to do. Nothing at all. I realise that is some people's idea of hell. I know my mother would probably expire if she had absolutely nothing to do. There's never actually nothing to do, nature abhors a vacuum and all that, there's always dishes or some sort of tidying or something you could be getting on with. I love when there really isn't though, or at least nothing pressing, and you can pour yourself a cold fizzy drink and curl up on the couch, play a game, peruse the internet, read or just watch tv, bliss!!

• No list about happiness would be complete if it didn't mention chocolate. Scientist type people say that it actually creates happiness, or at least produces chemicals in the brain which help with such things. They even say it's healthy and we should eat it every day. It may prevent cancer and stop you getting wrinkles, but I have a feeling they're referring to the 80% cocoa posh yucky stuff, not a dairy milk or anything. As I write I'm munching a mint aero that was just handed to me, a grown-up sort of easter present, not egg shaped but still glorious!!

• Many many small, insignificant things, many large important things. Kissing my husband, playing with my kids, chatting with friends, hugging my dad, buying shoes, sparkly anythings, a good book, poetry, music, rambly emails, dancing in the kitchen, beer, nights out, nights in, apples, long soaky baths, cows and their noses, diet coke, deli rolls, candles, love, pride, mum type things, make-and-do, Stephen Fry, cartridge pens, stationary of all kinds, book smell, cheese - not too smelly, words, Ovaltine, palindromes, bad jokes, socks, orgasms, wine, fresh air, growing plants from seed, manatees, sewing boxes, buttons, clever birthday cards, writing, dreaming, ice cubes, cinema popcorn, PVA glue, paint, interior decorating, stand-up comedy, fish fingers and so on and so on. Brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favourite things.

Pleased to meet you!!

It's awkward sometimes, meeting someone you've been dying to meet, or seeing someone after a really really long time, which is on par with meeting them for the first time as far as awkwardness goes really isn't it?? I don't do first impressions very well. I tend to be either ridiculously quiet, just let everyone else talk and hope no one notices my existence – or embarrassingly hyper, volume ever rising and saying the most bloody insane things a mile a minute. I know I'm doing these things, whichever it ends up being on the day, but I can't help myself, I really can't!! Drunk is worse, I'm a terrible drunk at the best of times but if you put drunkenness with awkwardness you get guaranteed inappropriateness from me every time.

I was just thinking about something Smarty Pants said the other day. She was commenting on how my dad always chats to people in every shop he goes into. He usually has a nice embarrassing laugh with them too. When I was a teenager I used to wish I had some kind of hole boring device with me so I could get away, now I just find it amusing. She mentioned that I always do it too, although I tend not to mortify people while I do. I do you know, wherever I go, I chat to perfect strangers like I've known them all my life. I love people, they're one of my most favourite things, so chatting to them seems perfectly natural to me. I can't figure out what makes me so fumbly when it's someone belonging to someone I really care about then, a relative I haven't seen in years, a new colleague and so on.

I have a theory. A friend of mine said something a while ago about putting forward the best version of yourself. I think that's it, I'm not entirely enamoured with any versions of me. Now now, don't cry, I don't mean I hate myself or anything. I'm just very self critical, and every version of me that I could put forward would have a flaw or five that I can see. It's this infernal honesty, I can't lie, really!! Well I can but it's blindingly obvious unless you're a bit tick!! I shouldn't be telling you this, now we can never play poker! Not being able to lie means I also can't misrepresent myself, I am what I am, whether I like it or not. I'm just convinced no-one could possibly want to play in my yard!! Maybe Emo would suit me, I think I'll dig out an eyeliner, no-one understands me!!

Let them eat cake!!

Six years ago I had a bit of a funny head moment, I developed a complete determination to do something that at the time seemed very difficult, almost impossible actually. I decided to fit in my debs dress. To our non Irish cousins that basically means I decided to become the size I was when I was 17. It was a strong determination, my head was just in "that place". This mysterious location we need to have our little brains in to successfully shun buns and chocolate of all kinds, chips and all!! That special place that allows you to force yourself to the gym after a mind alteringly stressful day at work.

Not one to do things by halves, I changed my lifestyle entirely. I don't believe in diets, except maybe as a springboard to start you off losing weight. I think in order to do it successfully you have to change everything. Cut out bad stuff, but allow yourself a treat now and then, dinners out, party food etc. Eat a proper balanced diet, lots of yummy healthy stuff, and move, a lot!! There's no secret to it really, we all know how to do it. It took time, but that was ok, I wanted to do it slowly, carefully, and properly.

Two years into it Rock God proposed and I got seriously serious, determined that my wedding dress would be the size of my debs dress, if not the colour (black - total goth!!) I think this was where it all started to go wrong however. Now I had a focus, a goal, a date by which I had to be skinny Minnie. And I did it!! Two weeks before the wedding I took down my debs dress, blew off the dust and slipped one leg, then the other into its satin folds. It may have been black but it was truly magnificent, I wish I could wear it every day. Rock God zipped me up and there it was, 17 year old me in all her glory. I walked down the aisle a fortnight later in the antithesis of that dress, ivory with gold threading, still with a corset, but without the many folds of satin, just a simple ivory skirt. I felt a million dollars, and I looked it if I do say so myself, which I do!! I had done it, I had beaten myself into a dress, to borrow a phrase from this brilliant blog of the same name.

That was it though, I had done it. It was done. Of course it wasn't really, yes I fit in the debs dress, yes I had a teeny wedding dress but I wouldn't forever.

The light had gone out, the switch in my brain just flipped itself off. Over the next 3 years between honeymoon, pregnancy, being stay at home mummy extrordinaire, not having time nor inclination to get the the gym, I put all or most of it back on.

In February Smarty Pants made her confirmation. I bought a lovely pair of trousers in the size I thought I was, in a mad rush I never tried them on. I brought them home and, no reader, not a bit of it. Tantalisingly close but no cigar. They point blank refused to close. The switch flipped back on. I had 3 weeks til the confirmation, I employed every tactic I knew, every trick in the book. I wore those trousers on the day, they looked great, albeit hidden at the waist by a nicely forgiving top. I was bet into them as we say in Dublin, but I was in them. Two months on and they're a bit loose to tell the truth.

No more deadlines, no more goals, no more doing things for the wrong reasons. My deadline now is the end of the road, the time for kicking buckets. I don't plan to ever let myself get back into this state again, my body is a temple, be it one with the odd offering of beer and cake!!