Thank you to Sally at Who’s The Mummy for passing this Great Read Award to the Tish Tash Toys blog. My second award! Whoo-hoo.

Apparently there was an article in Reader’s Digest (so you know it’s definitely true) that said people are genetically predisposed to be mostly happy or mostly unhappy. The test to see which you are is this: can you think of 10 happy memories? Now think of 10 unhappy memories. Which was faster?

The theory is that if you’re the sort of person who remembers happy things more vividly than unhappy things, then you’re likely to be happier overall.

So, here are my 10 happy memories:

1. When I was a teenager, laughing with my Mum, brother and sisters so much we all ended up on the floor. Goodness know what we were laughing about, we’d often all hysterically laugh about utter nonsense!
2. My first kiss with the sweetest boy – Simon. I was about 11 and he was an absolute blond vision (aged 12). When I say kiss, I do mean totally innocent peck on the cheek. I adored him, but he made me feel so insanely wobbly, I couldn’t bear it and had to let him go. I regretted that for years.
3. My very first cat Kerry coming to ‘tell’ me she was in labour. I was 11 or 12, and we had an incredible cat/person connection. She got me out of bed wowling and wailing, made me follow her to the airing cupboard where I sat stroking and reassuring her while she gave birth to four beautiful kittens. I felt so needed and loved, and my lifelong love for all animals is made deeper by this incredible memory.
4. Talking of Kerry (the wonder cat!) I have another very happy memory of her. She came back to me the day after she died and curled up on my bed, as she did every night of her life. This was one of the things in my life that made me believe in life after death.
5. The first night I spent with my husband
6. Walking down Hove High Street to buy the pregnancy testing kit which I’d use later that morning to confirm I was pregnant with my daughter. The walk down to Boots was the longest walk – like in slow motion. We’d been trying for a baby for over a year and I was pretty sure we’d cracked it that day. We had!
7. My wonderful wedding day (5 year anniversary coming up on Friday!)
8. Waking up in labour with my son and having his beautiful little body in my arms 37 minutes later.
9. Moving to Devon in 2008.
10. Seeing Natasha’s face on Saturday when her Nanny bought her a real Roman coin at the flea market we went to. She’s doing Roman’s at school this term and I’m still not sure she understood the coin was over one thousand, seven hundred years old. She’s very happy about being able to take it to school, and that makes me a happy mummy too.

And I’m tagging the following people as being great reads – feel free to choose ten of your happiest memories too or perhaps make up some random questions of your own.

Elsie at Flower Fairies & Fairy Cakes & A Confused Take That Fan