ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!

So shattered right now. Sleep is the cheapest cure to not feeling 100%. I'm off to bed with Radio 4, the paper and a herby tea. Normal service will resume shortly.

Love Froogs xxxx

What is happiness?

  I was reminded of the government commission by the National Audit Office, whilst I lay in the bath tonight, something, which by the way, always makes me happy and listened to a Radio 4 Moral Maze debate on happiness. Happiness is going to be measured. As yet, I'm not sure why.........I must have drifted off whilst they talked about the why.

I consider myself to be mostly happy with the daily struggle and tussle with life and know that working really hard for something is dreadful at the time, but incredibly satisfying at the end. I know that the more I struggle and the more I fight for something, then it's so appreciated at the end. I don't strive to be happy and I don't go looking for it and although, it may make me sound rather dour, I really enjoy the challenges of daily life. Of course, it's all relative. I don't have to walk miles for water, five of my children didn't die of starvation, nor will I die a painful death from malaria, but we all have our struggles in one way or another. I sometimes think that happiness can be over rated and people start worrying if they are not happy. Some one on the radio said, words to the effect, if you are well, have friends, do something meaningful, then why would you not consider yourself happy?

Today, I arrived at work and watched the sun rise over St. Austell bay, and I drove home watching the moon rise over Bodmin moor. Now I could dwell on the fact that I spent dawn till dusk at work but I could also celebrate the most beautifully crisp winter day, filled with bright cloudless sunshine and a clear star filled night. I'm going to celebrate the latter along with the fact that I had a job to go to and a home to come home to.

I'm content in the knowledge, that in my struggle, that I'm doing the right thing. I'm content in knowing that the moments of happiness come and go, sometimes like a visitor that can't stay long and like a dear friend, we miss it when it's gone.

The most precious things ARE free!

I've had a good day! Work was good, the kids are great and the people I work with are wonderful. Everything I do is of my own choice and my own making. I don't agree with everything that happens in this world, I don't like the way my country is run sometimes, but I can vote and exercise my rights and freedoms. I live where I like. I do the job I choose. I speak to anyone, about anything and I often call, who ever is running my country a berk! I have the right to do that! I live in freedom and democracy and I've never known anything different.

If we don't like the way our country is run, we can use our vote to change it. I can't imagine having no one to vote for but the people I am told I am to vote for?

Like all of you, I watched the news tonight and was reminded of June 4th 1989. I was a passionate 24 year old, who stood and wept as I watched the BBC that night as unarmed protesters were shot in Tiananmen square. 'Radical' young people in China wanted democracy, to form political organisations and to have a choice of who they voted for. All those years ago, my first husband and I were running a pub and we revoked our 'No TV in our pub!' rule and plonked the TV on the end of the bar, and dumb founded we watched, whilst surrounded by regulars of our small Cornish village local, as students and activists were rounded up and shot for wanting the simple freedoms we took for granted. There were local farmers and workers from Fowey and Par docks in there that night, who stood and watched the ITV news, almost in tears at what they saw. As the ten o'clock news came to an end, a silence fell in that pub. Dominoes, a juke box, euchre and a few pints of Tinners just wouldn't do it that night! For a pub, it was a sobering moment!


I was reminded of that night because Liu Xiaobo has been awarded the Nobel Peace prize, which is no comfort to someone imprisoned in China for wanting 'multi-party democracy' and he himself was a key leader in the Tiananmen square protest. He is currently serving an eleven year sentence for 'subverting state power' including his vocalisation of the treatment of Chinese Tibetans.

Everything I do, I do of my own choosing. Everywhere I go, everyone I know and anything I want is of my own choosing. I am totally free. I might worry about the financial constraints of my life but nothing truly constrains my life in any way. The most precious thing I have is my freedom; it cost me nothing but today I was reminded how valuable and precious it is.