It’s always exciting to get a new follower, not because it adds one to the total (I’m not really interested in increasing the number as such) but because I always go to look at their blog and from time to time find new, interesting blogger friends, sometimes from a ‘new’ country. In the past few months I’ve added Slovenia and Latvia to the list.

View from our bedroom window this morning
The most recent new follower is Lisa Lennon, who says she’s a professional blogger. As regular readers of grumptyke know, for me blogging is just a hobby and that would change only if I created a business in the future. It could happen but if so it would have a different website/blog.
When I went to Lisa’s blog to see what it was about I saw a recent post on happiness. I won’t quote from it here; if you’re interested her blog is at
https://lisalennonofficialblog.wordpress.com/
Happiness is …?
However, it set me thinking about happiness for me. I’m lucky, in general I have it. Look at the view from my bedroom window above, over the Wharfe valley in Yorkshire (it’s the same view from the kitchen window) so there’s a good chance of feeling happy each morning, whether getting out of bed or making the morning tea/coffee. We’re lucky enough to wake to birdsong too early in the morning, mostly bluetits, blackbirds and goldfinches. How can that not make you happy?
Today I went to my local city, Leeds. Again as regular readers will know I do not in general like cities, I’m definitely a country person, but Leeds makes me happy. Perhaps it’s the young people – it’s an important university city so it’s full of them. Perhaps it’s the buskers on the street, there’s always at least one, ranging from potential rock celebrities to young classical violinists, from young aspiring operatic sopranos to today’s offering, a not so young singer, far, far superior to Classic FM’s Alexandra Armstrong. Not quite Pavarotti but a good voice who treated us to a variety from Nessun Dorma to Sweet Caroline, which again was not quite Neil Diamond but excellent nevertheless. He made me happy, as did a group of three young women sitting on the street eating some wrap or other they had just bought interspersed with hilarious laughter. I couldn’t help but laugh with them.
Music
Then there’s music. I couldn’t possibly list all the music which instantly makes me feel happy so I’ll mention just two pieces. The first is Schubert’s ‘Trout’ quintet; depending on my mood I’ll sit quietly basking in it, or dance around the room singing the melody lines. The second can be guaranteed to make me feel happy no matter what catastrophe has befallen me: Beethoven’s ninth symphony, as I hang on every note waiting finally to drown in the ‘Ode to joy’.
Possessions
I’ve been trying to think of possessions which make me happy. That’s difficult. Certainly there are many things which I’m glad to have but I cannot say they make me happy, though what they allow me to do does, like reading and writing blog posts. In that sense my 10 year old Macbook and my rather younger iPad make me happy. And of course the radio bought for 50p on which I usually listen to music; I have more sophisticated equipment to play my LPs, which include the complete works of Beethoven, many operas and all sorts of other music. That equipment is probably 30 or 40 years old.
I’m rambling, which is anyway how this blog was conceived. So, sitting writing it, I’m happy.
October 5, 2017 at 7:54 pm
Possessions that make me happy: almost anything made of copper, but I do have a thing about samovars. I collect them but not like someone who’s unhappy until he gets some particular type. Bottles of single malt whisky: I like having them around, I’m really happy inside a specialist malt whisky shop and I drink from them occasionally. Tonight a nasty cold has just got me, so this is one of the occasions. Leather walking boots. Irises. Cats are not possessions, whatever the law says.
September 15, 2017 at 8:23 am
Well, Roger, as always I read your posts with pleasure and good intentions towards sharing my thoughts. Not all the time the well of words is with me 🙂
Yesterday I was reading a passage from the Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone about happiness; one character found it in the magnificent architecture of Rome, another in women, and for poor Michelangelo happiness resided in one sculpture order…
For me happiness is the freedom of reading, writing whatever goes through my head, music, the park, the old and the new in the city, the joy of watching seasons tiptoe by…. Possessions, too. My bike 🙂
September 15, 2017 at 4:55 pm
I’d gathered you like your bike (and roller skates!). I gave up biking at about 16 years old but then in a fit of madness I rode from Baia Mare to Suceava – the ‘difficult’ route, 26 hairpins on one of the passes I think, the same route we took in the car this year – on a bike cobbled together from scrounged bits and pieces. I was then 56 I think. Romanians thought I was crazy. I was happy doing it but have never been on a bike since.
September 15, 2017 at 5:30 pm
You can add me to all the Romanians who thought you were crazy 🙂 Yes, I do like my bike, it never failed me. I wish I could say the same about my roller skates. I have read an article about bikers and according to it, there are 3 categories of bikers, the ones who fell, the ones who have fallen and the ones who will fall. I am in the first group, and judging after your performance, you too. I can only dream of such adventure 🙂