101 Small Pleasures

A hot water bottle on a cold night;
Drinking tea from a china cup;
Seeing things which you planted grow;
Cycling over the Liffey on a fine day;
Making a cat purr;
Finishing a tube of a cosmetic;
Listening to a podcast;
Finding lost keys;
A thank you letter;
Freewheeling on a bike;

Finishing a worthy book;
Finding a new good book;
Rereading a favourite book;
An empty inbox;
Being up when everyone else is asleep;
Being asleep when everyone else is up;
Finding out a new thing;
Turning to the next month on a calendar;
Taking a good photograph;
Finishing Saturday’s paper on Saturday;

Looking at old family pictures;
Giving away old clothes;
Staying in bed for an extra half an hour;
Sleeping through the night undisturbed;
Reading in bed;
A stretch in the evenings;
Spring in the air;
The smell of freshly mown grass;
Being at home alone;
Successfully ushering a fly out the window;

Getting a seat near the fire;
Getting into dry clothes when you have been wet;
Holding hands with the children;
Making the children laugh;
An evening in when all your recent evenings have been out;
An evening out when all your recent evenings have been in;
Walking on a crisp winter’s day;
Seeing snow on the mountains from the centre of Dublin;
Snow falling;
Snow sticking;

Snowdrops in January;
Daffodils in March;
Tulips in April;
Cherry blossom in May;
The colours of leaves in autumn;
The smell of lilies;
Flowers from the garden in the house;
Lit candles;
Brass polishing;
Shining silver;
Polished floorboards;

Fresh bread and butter;
Making jam;
Eating biscuits you have made;
Pulling a working pen from the jar first time;
Finding the scissors where it is supposed to be;
A tidy desk;
A comment on your blog;
Ticking off items on a list;
Singing;
Birdsong;

The smell of clean clothes that have dried on the line;
Folded clothes;
Clean sheets;
Listening to the sound of wet car wheels on wet tarmac while lying in bed;
Finding exact change;
Getting a postcard;
Writing on heavy writing paper with a fountain pen;
Being well after you have been ill;
Waking up without a headache when you have gone to bed with one;
Poetry;

Finding something good on the television;
Compost (seriously, isn’t it miraculous?);
Watching a family film with the family;
The smell of coffee;
The smell of warm bread;
The smell of turf on the fire;
Winter sunshine;
A breeze from a window in summer;
Someone shutting the door from which a draft had been emanating;
Playing cards with the children;

Walking to school with the children;
Timing the walk to school so that all of the traffic lights are green;
A hard frost with frost on the roofs and crunchy, frosty grass underfoot;
Arriving at the bus stop, just as the bus does;
Being near water: lakes, rivers, canals and the sea;
Reading snippets from the paper to my husband;
Finishing work for the day;
Being greeted by family like a superhero on getting home from work;
The turning of the seasons;
Straightening a crooked picture frame on the wall;

Brushing my hair;
Playing with magnets;
Popping bubble wrap;
Coming to the dishwasher and finding someone else has emptied it;
A Friday evening and a Saturday in every week;
Successfully supergluing something back together;
Wearing a favourite piece of jewellery;
Observing the effect of polish on shoes;
Knowing your neighbours;
Getting in just before the rain starts;

Finishing things.
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