Too many books

We need to get rid of stuff. The whole family squirrels things away and refuses to let them go. My youngest (who is 15) has a stack of toys from toddlerhood and boxes piled high full of soft toys, lego, games no one ever plays and meccano. The eldest son has a large room which I have not seen inside for a couple of years now, but features redundant pieces of furniture and a large set of golf clubs. It is an inherited characteristic. My husband's den is the garage which is full to capacity with the products of various endeavours to build the world's biggest Van der Graaf generator, an efficient rocket for taking aerial shots of our house, and the on-going project which I believe is to communicate with life on other planets using a series of copper coils, aluminium foil, cardboard tubes and elastic bands.

My own weakness is an inability to throw away books. I just made a determined effort to try and let go of some to take them down to the Oxfam shop in town and only managed to find 5 books that I could manage to do without. I have to try harder.

I also have a rather large pile of my own books occupying the dining room table. I need to do something. There is nowhere left to put the tree. My parents are coming over for Christmas and this is only a few weeks away now.

Meanwhile the quest for happiness continues, but I think that maybe the little unexpected pleasures make me the most happy. Maybe the purest happiness cannot be sought but is found by accident and the best thing to do is to dwell on it and try and enjoy it while it lasts. When I rang my parents yesterday they answered the phone so brightly - my mother planning little excursions with friends, determined that her life should go on. Then, as if she were handing me a baton, I felt happier too. I felt that I had been given permission to be happy, that it was OK again to laugh aloud.