The Secret to Happiness

Would seven prove to be too much? is the prompt for the latest 100 Word Challenge. It's a question that's been bugging me this summer as I toil to thrill the nation's frogs:

Men derive happiness from washing dishes, reveals one report. 
Women, says another, achieve it through being women. They are healthier, better educated and less often murdered. And, naturally, they enjoy a blissful routine of dirty dishes. 
Different research claims rose-tinted spectacles are an essential ingredient of bliss. 

These studies omit one crucial truth. The secret to happiness is digging. Whenever I need a boost, I hack out a pond. The vicarage lawn is vanishing beneath my pickaxe. 
During the relentless school holidays I feel my serenity teetering. I know, before August is out, I'll be assaulting the London clay. But would seven prove to be too much?


The first of many...



Comments

  1. Haha you are right, the secret to happiness is digging! I hope you excavations result in much joy...and don't prove to be too much!

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    1. So glad you've discovered this too. My tally so far is three ponds and a stream, but I have plans...!

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  2. Wow - very impressed with the trench you've dug!I'll bet you get lots of exercise, not to mention off load a heap of stress with that pick axe, and digging

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    1. Took me weeks, that did. That was two years ago. Now it's full of newts and tadpoles and I've dug several more!

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  3. Unfortunately my secret to happiness is pizza - and seven is definitley too much! Maybe if I had a garden...

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    1. You are funny! Seven is definitely too much happiness in your case!

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  4. I'm with midlife - pizza over ponds. Although my secret to happiness is a slab of Cadbury's Dairy Milk and seven doesn't even touch the edge!

    Great effort with the digging though - would love to see pic of the completed ponds.

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    1. Oh, I should have put one on. You can see that hole two years on in this post http://adventuresofamiddle-agedmatron.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/courting-controversy.html. I'm with you with the Cadbury's Dairy Milk!

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  5. A pond? I find solace in a hot bath and gin....

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  6. Naturally I derive intense pleasure from those too. But they lack the cathartic violence of pick-axeing.

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  7. Digging! Our dog must have been positively euphoric then. Enjoyed this original take on the prompt.

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  8. Digging! Our dog must have been positively euphoric then. Enjoyed this original take on the prompt.

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    1. Not just any old digging. Gotta be a pond at the end of it!

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  9. Maybe the next step is to redesign and re-route your waterworks! Love the way you move from those silly advice-column abstractions to nice solid clay - I think that progression is what makes this piece work.

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    1. So glad you think it works. I'm ever doubting. Perhaps I could dig a new stream to my next pond!

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  10. The secret to inner peace is getting our hands in the soil, but digging my lead instead to pain!

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