Susan notes: at Christmas, when I was a young girl, my mother used to read me this story from a beautiful picture book.

I remember how it made me feel at once terribly sad and tearfully joyful.

I could imagine the poor little girl cold and alone, seeking comfort from a few matches, the only possesions she had...

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait.

You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.

We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there.

It’s confirmed: I’m full of gratitude about mostly everything, just about all the time.

And I’m happier than most people too (which, to be honest, came as a bit of a surprise…).

I’m one of those odd ducks who loves taking tests, ticking boxes and filling out surveys and questionnaires (strange, but true). So when my friend Terry Netto sent me a link to the Authentic Happiness Testing Center, I was intrigued.

There once was a little girl who had a bad temper.  Her mother gave her a bag of nails, and told her that every time she lost her temper, she must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

The first day the girl had driven 37 nails into the fence.

Over the next few weeks, as she learned to control her anger, the number of nails she hammered into the fence each day gradually dwindled.

She discovered it was easier to hold her temper than it was to drive the nails into the fence.

Finally, the day came when the girl didn't lose her temper at all, and she went to find her mother...

A little boy asks his mother: “Why do you cry?”

“Because I'm a woman” she answers.

“I don’t understand” he says.

His mother hugs him and says: “And maybe you never will”

Later the little boy asked his father: “Why does mommy cry?”