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If you’re happy and you know it, be sure to mention it

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We spend a lot of our adult lives learning how to tell people that we want things to change.

We go on training at work about how to give feedback. We listen to radio phone-ins about how to ask fellow commuters to be more considerate. We read agony aunt column after agony aunt column about how to get our spouse to PLEASE JUST CHANGE THE TOILET ROLL FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE FOR THE LOVE OF ANDREX.

And whilst there is of course value in finding ways to make the imperfect better, my plan for 2020 is to spend more time pointing out the things that make me happy just as they are.

A couple of years ago I started keeping a gratitude list. Every week I make a note of the things – big and small – that have happened that I want to remember and that prove that life is great. I’d seen somebody on Twitter recommend it, so I thought I’d give it a go, and it’s done me the world of good – not just because it’s healthy to be grateful for what you have, but because it’s made me realise what really matters to me.

I kept a list every week in my 2019 diary, and though the exact words differ from week to week, the same themes come up time and time again. Cuddles with my daughter. Seeing her laugh. Time chatting to my husband. Moments to myself to read or watch TV. A catch up with friends. A really excellent cake. A visit from my mum. Managing to stay awake throughout an entire film (this happened approximately twice in 12 months). Proof that I’m keeping my mental health in check. Space to do the work I want to do. Our home.

There are weeks when I’ve noted down special events – new exciting projects, birthdays, trips away – but most of the time, each item on the list is a reminder that it’s the simple things I’m most grateful for. It’s a written collection of all the day to day bits and pieces that could easily go unnoticed, but that are actually my favourite parts of all.

The importance of acknowledging the good became even more apparent to me last year when our daughter got a nasty eye infection. All of a sudden we were in paediatric A&E being told we’d be there overnight so that she could have antibiotics pumped into her little veins through an IV. We caught the infection straightaway and the necessary steps were taken, so all was largely fine, but it was also a bit scary. And it involved spending time in hospital, which is always difficult, particularly when children are involved.

All I wanted the entire time we were there was to go home and back to normal. It made me realise how much I loved our life and that all I need to be happy is to be free to live it, together.

And though that thought process wasn’t new, I wondered if I’d ever actually mentioned how much I liked things, just as they were. I KNEW I’d mentioned how much better life would be if only the bins were emptied more regularly and if we changed a lightbulb more than once every DECADE, but had I said: “Actually, everything we have is everything I want. Nothing else matters”? I’m not sure. So I started.

I’ve tried to take the time to stop and acknowledge when we’re having a nice time, and to tell my husband and my daughter how much I enjoy our time together. I’m an organised person, so I spend most of my time living in the future, planning for the next meal I need to cook, groceries I need to buy, or stain I need to try and fail to remove. And though the world must keep turning, I don’t want to forget to engage with what’s happening now. I don’t want happiness to be something I only recognise retrospectively – I want to notice it in the moment. The future will be here soon enough.

We’ve tried to make it the norm as a couple for us to tell each other when we’re struggling. We let each other know how we’re feeling, we talk about why that might be and what (if anything) can be done, and then we try to move on. It’s not about brushing tough stuff away, quite the opposite. Discussing hard times is as normal as chatting about what’s on TV, so the hurdle isn’t finding the courage to bring it up, but figuring out how we can tackle it together.

And I want it to be just as normal to chat about what’s great. It’s not about living some smug, insufferable life where we pat ourselves on the back all day long, it’s just about making sure we don’t forget that we’re lucky to have each other and that we’ve not forgotten the time when all we wanted was everything that we’ve got now.

My husband reminds me regularly of this Kurt Vonnegut quote, which I love: “And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

So that’s what I’m trying to do, this year and beyond. Notice. Life can be incredibly difficult. Surprising in glorious ways, and shocking in others. So the least we can do is acknowledge when it’s good, and let the people around us know how happy they make us.

And I’ll be keeping up with my gratitude list too. Stopping to note down the funny, touching, meaningful joys I’ve taken from each day is the cheapest form of therapy I’ve ever known, and I strongly recommend it. And it’s a lovely thing to look back on at the end of the year, too.

So that’s my intentions for 2020 officially documented, and I’d love to know what yours are, too. Happy New Year.

33 lessons I learnt during my 33rd year

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33 lessons I learnt during my 33rd yearYou know the drill by now – I’ll turn 33 this week, so, as is tradition, I’ve written a list of things I have to say at this point in time. This time it’s some of the lessons this period has taught me. My 33rd year has been dominated by pregnancy and my daughter’s first seven months in the world, so they’re mostly about that, with a few bonus points chucked in for good measure.

(Here are the lists I wrote when I turned 29, 30, 31 and 32, in case you’d like to catch up before we get going.)

1. I’ve learnt that you have absolutely no idea what it’s like to have a baby until you have a baby and that, even then, you only really know what it’s like for you.

2. I’ve learnt that the return of mid-length shorts to the world of fashion could not have come at a better time. I spend most of the day bending down to pick up my child and I need to be able to do so without fear of arrest.

3. I’ve learnt that optimism is heading down to theatre to have a caesarean section with your knickers on in the hope that the surgeons will just cut along the waistband.

4. I’ve learnt that marriage is having to take those knickers off and hand them to your husband to store in the pocket of his scrubs. The spiral of indignity started there and ended… hang on, when will that be?

5. I’ve learnt that when you have a baby your body changes. Mine is bigger, it’s wobblier, and it’s scarred. Of course it is, I housed a giant child for nine months and then had her cut out of me. I am grateful for everything my body let me do and I am happy to look a little different as a result. Women, there’s enough nonsense out there about how we should or shouldn’t look. The least we can do is refuse to add our own voices to the noise.

6. I’ve learnt that instead of thinking ‘What would Beyoncé or Oprah or Emma Thompson do?’, it’s more useful to think ‘What would I do in this situation if I wasn’t worried about what anybody else thought?’

7. I’ve learnt that having a baby makes you look at your parents completely differently. Finally, true empathy and gratitude starts to kick in. Oh wow, you did all this for me. Holy sh*t, this is hard work. Thank you, thank you so much.

8. I’ve learnt that when I look at a picture of my daughter on my phone, I think: That’s my heart right there. That is a photograph of my heart. Oh no wait, that’s 76576 photographs of my heart and my phone memory is full AGAIN.

9. I’ve learnt that marriage is hard when you’ve started a family because you both spend all your time cuddling somebody else. It’s important to make a little room for each other too when you can.

10. I’ve learnt that if you want to eat an iced bun you should eat an iced bun because life is short and cake is delicious.

33 lessons I learnt during my 33rd year

Picture by @ben_cameron. I’ve learnt that he can articulate my feelings in a drawing.

11. I’ve learnt that, whereas I used to be too afraid to wear a jumpsuit because you have to take the entire thing off to go to the toilet (what if somebody walked in?), so many people at our local hospital have now seen me do so much more than that that I no longer care. Join the freakin’ list, lads.

12. I’ve learnt that there is a serious gap in the market for a wearable drinking vessel for breastfeeding mums. No activity on this earth makes you thirstier, and yet you don’t have any hands free to hold a drink. Come on, someone, invent something.

13. I’ve learnt that people who show up at your door with food during the first few weeks of your baby’s life are the greatest people in the world.

14. I’ve learnt that perfect strangers think you don’t know very much about your own child. “She’s tall isn’t she!” Yep. “She’s a big baby isn’t she!” Uhuh. “She’s long for that pram isn’t she!” SHE USED TO LIVE IN MY BODY. I AM AWARE OF ALL OF THESE THINGS.

15. I’ve learnt that all it would take for me to be interested in the World Cup is a nice man in a blue waistcoat in charge of the England team.

16. I’ve learnt that one of the greatest gifts motherhood has given me is the opportunity to say “Come on then, let’s get you home!” into the pram when I need to get out of an awkward social situation.

17. I’ve learnt that it’s hard when you’re in charge of a small person’s life not to see everything else in the world as utterly trivial. But it’s important that you don’t.

18. I’ve learnt that no human being on this earth yields more power than a baby who finds themselves momentarily without a nappy.

19. I’ve learnt that the reason it’s so difficult to just be ourselves is because who we are never stops changing.

20. I’ve learnt that when people tell you to make the most of your free time before you have a baby you think ‘Yeah yeah yeah, what does that even mean?’, and then you give birth and you realise exactly what that would have meant, but it’s too late.

21. I’ve learnt that I’ll feel sick for the 12 hours before I’m going to be away from my daughter, but that, if it’s to go and do something fun, and she’s in safe hands, I will feel better when I get there, and that the time away will do me good.

33 lessons I learnt during my 33rd year22. I’ve learnt that it is possible to feel nostalgic about things that you found really difficult. Pregnancy was tough – my back hurt, I had migraines all the time, and I became so enormous that I could hardly walk. But still, sometimes I miss it. I miss carrying her around with me, and the freedom only retrospect has made me realise that I had.

23. I’ve learnt that any mother you see feeding a baby will probably have been through quite a journey to get that child to eat in a way that works for them both. I thought it would be simple, but it wasn’t.

24. I’ve learnt that my hopes and dreams outside motherhood are very much still alive and well, it’s just that I have to use my free time more wisely now to make sure they happen.

25. I’ve learnt that the second you start to get used to whatever stage your baby’s at, they’ll move onto the next one. Don’t you dare start to think that you know what you’re doing.

26. I’ve learnt that I wear make-up for my own benefit. When I first became a mum, I discovered that I felt better if the face looking back at me in the mirror looked as nice as I think it can. It was my view I was concerned with, not anybody else’s.

27. I’ve learnt that having a baby increases your ability to hold a grudge. I’m sorry, was that a negative word/thought/exhalation in my daughter’s direction? Goodbye forever.

28. I’ve learnt that it’s good to do things that scare you. Maternity leave can be daunting as hell, as I wrote here, but it does help if you leave the house, try something new, and meet people. If you’d told me last year that I would join a choir and be up for singing with them in front of other people, I’m not sure I’d have believed you. A lot can change in a year.

29. I’ve learnt that you discover just how good your hearing is when your child is born. I’d be able to hear our daughter crying through a typhoon. I can’t hear my own mobile phone ring when it’s in my hand, but at least I’ve got her covered.

30. I’ve learnt that if somebody sat you down and really made you understand what the first few weeks of having a baby are like, you simply wouldn’t do it. So thank goodness they don’t.

31. I’ve learnt that if somebody had sat me down and tried to articulate how incredible seeing our baby being born would feel, they still wouldn’t have been able to prepare us.

32. I’ve learnt that I feel like I’ve aged a lot more than just one year in the last 12 months.

33. I’ve learnt that, even though it’s been hard and tiring and more emotional than a season finale of Grey’s Anatomy, I wouldn’t change a single thing.

32 reasons getting older isn’t so bad after all

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32 reasons getting older isn't so bad after allI’m about to turn 32. Thank you in advance for your card/Facebook message/silent cursing of the day I was born.

For the last three years, I’ve taken to this blog to write a list to mark the end of another year. When I was 29 I wrote 29 things I’d learnt in 29 years. Then came 30 pieces of wisdom to mark the big three-oh. And then, last year, 31 things that continue to surprise me about being alive. (A list which, were I writing it this year would include: That anybody thinks it’s reasonable to have phone keypad tones switched on in 2017; and The incredible impact air conditioning can have on my temper).

So now here comes 32. And whilst all the other ages came as something of a shock, this one feels just right. So this time I’m sharing why getting older isn’t so bad after all. It’s gonna happen anyway so you may as well smile about it.

1. Nobody cares that your main aim in life is to go home at a reasonable hour and get into bed. Most people feel exactly the same way.

2. The older you get the clearer it becomes that – with just a few exceptions – you simply don’t have to do things you don’t want to do. (This TED Talk on how to stop giving a f*** offers very helpful advice on this subject).

3. It finally dawns on you that the idea that if you’re not wearing heels you’re not properly dressed up is BULLSHIT. You can, of course, wear whatever the hell you want.

4. People don’t just compliment your nail varnish, they applaud you for finding time to apply it.

5. You get to regale younger folks with crazy stories about all the things you got up to when you were young. About the time you failed an exam because you stayed up till 5am the night before. Or when you drank triple vodka and lemonades and begged your body to let you throw up. They don’t believe you were ever that fun, of course, but you get to tell the story nonetheless.

6. You realise that the fact that women go to the toilet too isn’t taboo after all. In fact, within minutes of meeting a fellow female thirty something, it’s not unusual to have compared notes regarding the weakness of your respective bladders. 

32 reasons getting older isn't so bad after all7. The ever growing list of glorious new roles you get to take on. Auntie, sister-in-law, friend-always-happy-to-discuss-the-complexities-of-Coronation-Street-storylines. With great age comes great responsibility, and I am here for all of it.

8. Female friendships at this point in our lives are better than they’ve ever been. Much like wine, cheese and Colin Firth, they really do get better with age.

9. The sweet joy of regressing. Yes maturity is important, but hanging out with school friends and howling about the time Tina hid around a corner waiting to scare me and instead jumped onto a perfect stranger’s back, will never get old, even if we do.

10. Relationships with your siblings. My brothers are two of the best men I know. This is not a sentence I thought I’d write when we were living at home and SCREAMING at each other about who got to sit in the armchair closest to the telly. (I mean, it doesn’t matter but it was always them and it was so unfair). And I have it on good authority that they thought I was pretty ghastly too. Nice job growing up, everyone.

11. You realise that dropping a swear word into conversation with your parents won’t bring the world to an end. It’s been 32 years and we’re finally in agreement that ‘arse’ is an incredibly useful term.

12. We get to look around at a world growing up on social media secure in the knowledge that, unless time machines become a thing – and they SHOULDN’T – the minutiae of our teenage years will never be documented on the Internet.

13. The oddly grounding effect of spotting a grey hair in your fringe. Here I am, it says, the passing of time, happening right here above your eyebrows. Stop dicking about on Twitter and LIVE, for goodness sake.

14. You learn that a successful marriage depends on a strong commitment to little white lies. (My husband refuses to admit that he can see the aforementioned grey hairs and for that I will love him forever).

15. For the most part, the people in your life now are in your life because you want them in your life. Because who’s got time to have things any other way? 

32 reasons getting older isn't so bad after all16. The freedom to write a birthday list requesting what you really want. You can keep your gadgets, give me comfortable pants and a high quality shower gel and I’ll be happy for the rest of the year.

17. Not being embarrassed to admit that when everybody started going on about Drake, it took you a week to figure out that people weren’t talking about Nick Drake.

18. …Or that “Sifting through a rack of reduced greetings cards” is your idea of a perfect weekend activity.

19. …Or to say that a stool is not a chair (with my back?!) so you will need to find somewhere else to sit. 

20. Or that, as far as you’re concerned, anything happening outside of your house on a Monday night is going to need to happen without you.

21. Having the confidence, when a waiter or waitress asks if you have any questions about the menu, to ask them so many that they may as well take a seat whilst you work through your list.

22. The constant novelty of marriage. Yes arguments happen, and no, some people don’t seem to understand that “Unless you’re planning to build some kind of fort, please can you put used toilet rolls in the recycling bin” isn’t a joke. But waking up next to a person about whom you believe all love songs were written never stops being exciting.

23. Knowing that with every day that passes, fewer and fewer people in the world expect you to look or be cool.

24. Realising it really is OK when somebody pays you a compliment to just say “Thank you”. You don’t have to panic and list every single one of your faults in response.

25. The understanding that nobody in your life ever thought you were being ironic when you listened to Steps, Boyzone and Westlife anyway, so you might as well just enjoy them with your head held high.

26. You discover the world of books designed to help make your life easier. I wrote a few months ago about Derren Brown’s ‘Happy’ and learning to focus on the things in life we can control. For this book and the many others about how to keep your sh*t together, I am very grateful.

32 reasons getting older isn't so bad after all27. The pressure of time continuing to pass forces you to finally find the courage to SAY what you want to do with your life. Which is excellent because now you can put all the energy you’d usually reserve for feeling embarrassed by your ambitions into realising them.

28. Permission to participate in borderline fanaticism regarding high quality air freshening products. TALK TO ME ABOUT MY DIFFUSERS. I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY.

29. The knowledge that, at any point, should you need or want to, you can go home. Because you are an adult, and you get to decide what you do.

30. Finally feeling like you know yourself well enough. How much sun you can take. How much water you need to feel normal. How many giant chocolate buttons is too many giant chocolate buttons. Sometimes you have to get it wrong before you can know how to get it right.

31. Realising that most of the very best moments of your life don’t make it into the photo album. They’re too good to stop to look through a lens.

32. Sh*t suddenly gets real. I’m sitting here with a small human being kicking, punching and spinning his or her way around my womb, quietly waiting to turn our lives upside down. It’s as bizarre and beautiful as everybody says.

You see, age has its downsides – its aches and pains, its effect on your capacity to party – but without it I wouldn’t be here, somewhere close to ready for motherhood. So I really can’t fault it.

I can only imagine what I’ll have to say about the world by the time 33 comes around.

31 things that continue to surprise me about being alive

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IMG_20160707_160600It’s birthday time for me 🎂 and this year I’m turning 31. It’s not Big News like turning 30 was – there’s no ’31 things to do before you turn 31′ lists to read. (I assume because people think the only thing you really need to do by this point is recover from turning 30).

Nope, it’s just a middle of the road, hardly worth mentioning sort of age, and I’m fine with that. It’s nice to go under the radar for a little while.

But just because 31 isn’t considered to be a particularly remarkable milestone, it doesn’t mean I have nothing to say. Regular readers will know that it’s become something of a tradition for me to write a list as long as my age to mark my birthday – a decision I imagine I will regret enormously by the time I turn 75.

When I turned 29 and 30 I jotted down a series of things I had learnt. So this year – in the interests of keeping things fresh – I’ve opted for a list of things that continue to surprise me about living in the world. Because the older you get, the longer that list becomes.

1. That there are people who do not like Jaffa Cakes.

2. That after almost 11 years together, the text message I’ve sent my husband which has provoked the most positive response to date said: I’ve managed to fix our WiFi.

3. That the lyric ‘My mama don’t like you and she likes everyone’ was all it would take for me to like Justin Bieber.

4. That, rather than a hilarious joke, ‘This train is delayed due to a lack of driver to drive it’ is a commonly used excuse for transport disruption. 

5. That the amount of money you spend on a pair of shoes has absolutely nothing to do with how much they are likely to hurt your feet.

6. That the glare I gave the man on the train who said “I’m on my way to London Houston” didn’t turn him to stone.

7. That I once offered a friend one of my pick n mix sweets and they took the single, giant fondant filled liquorice lace I was clearly going to save till last. WHO DOES THAT

8. That it’s possible to select an outfit to wear at at 8am, and then realise you hate it more than anything you’ve ever seen in your life by 10. 

9. That after two years as a glasses-wearer, I still fail to anticipate what will happen when I open the oven or dishwasher door whilst wearing them.

10. That eventually my life would be divided into two halves: Before I started enjoying gin, and after.

11. That there is nothing quite like the incredible sense of achievement one feels following the successful usage of drain unblocker.

12. That intense feeling of loss a woman feels when she looks in her make-up bag and discovers that her blusher has shattered into a million pink, dusty pieces. 

13. That there is nothing more frightening than the prospect of hearing a recording of your own voice.

14. That there is so much happening in the world, and yet I still feel the need to correct people when they say ‘I’ when they should be saying ‘me’.

15. That I still get invited to parties.

IMG_745916. That I ever thought simply wearing my sunglasses over the top of my glasses would fill the gap that only prescription sunglasses can. (And how unbelievably heavy that felt on my face).

17. That I get worryingly close at least once a week to sending an email that features the word ‘afterboob’ instead of ‘afternoon’.

18. That there would come a time when somebody saying they spent an afternoon reading a book – rather than looking at any kind of screen – would seem like the greatest demonstration of willpower the world has ever seen.

19. That my husband expects to receive the kind of praise one might reserve for a person who has just run the marathon for simply putting a wash on.

20. That nothing on this earth – not purchasing an appropriately ripe avocado, or figuring out what level of postage to put on a package, or attempting to cook one of Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals in less than an hour – is more difficult than finding a Friday night on which all members of a female friendship group are free to have dinner together. 

21. That the simple act of removing the Facebook app from my phone has done more for my mental health than any holiday ever could.

22. That one minute you swear you will never let a single crumb come near your precious new phone or laptop, and the next you’re tapping at the keys with peanut butter-covered fingers like there’s no tomorrow. 

23. That expression friends make when they discover that you’re left-handed. Like they don’t really know you at all.

24. That however hard you think it is to make a human being love you, it’s a walk in the park compared to trying to befriend a cat. 

25. That just because a hangover isn’t there when you wake up, it doesn’t mean it’s not coming for you in a few hours’ time.

26. That admitting that you suffer from anxiety is like mentioning that you own Adele’s album ’25’ – dude, everybody’s got that.

27. That I remain incapable of having a conversation with someone who is crying without also crying myself.

28. That some gluten free brands have the audacity to call the crumbly slices of disappointment they produce ‘bread’. 

29. That I now live in a world where recognising people because you’ve seen photographs of them on the Internet is considered evidence that you have strong social awareness, and not that maybe a restraining order should be issued.

30. That for so many of us it’s not until we reach our fourth decade on earth that we start to realise what it is that we want to do with our lives.

31. And that if the speed of the last 31 years has taught me anything, it’s that we don’t have time to spend a single second doing anything else.

4 things that happen when your name is Charlotte

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A princess has been born and her name is Charlotte which, in my entirely biased view, was a very strong choice. My mum is delighted. She’s always been very proud of herself for having called me Charlotte – “You have such a good name,” she says, “I did SO WELL coming up with that,” as if she was the one to have invented the name in the first place, back in (a year that was most likely earlier than 1985 and my birth) and given it as a gift to new mothers. And now that it’s been selected for a new member of the royal family, well, she couldn’t be happier.

And with my first name being thrust into the limelight, – the like of which us Charlottes have not experienced since E.B White decided to name a pig friendly spider after us – now feels like a good time to let the new addition to our crew know what it’s like to be called Charlotte. In summary, if you don’t mind spending an awful lot of your life saying “Yep, that’s right, double T, E” then you’ll be just fine.

1. You have 300 different nicknames

Char, Chars, Charl, Chaz, Chazza, Chas ‘n’ Dave, Charlie Pants, Charlie Party, Charlie Brown, CharlieEEE HEEE! Charlotte’s web, Chuck, Chucky, Lottie, Lotto… and that’s just the ones I can remember. People see Charlotte as a loose starting point from which to create a nickname of their choice. And, as with all names, it’s up to you whether you want to get in there first with your own nickname, waltzing into a party full of strangers and announcing yourself – Hey guys, I’m Charlotte, but you can call be C-Dawg –  or if you want to stick with the original and see what happens. Either way, it’s a risky business.

2. You discover it sounds an awful lot like ‘shut up’

You know when people are whispering in class when they shouldn’t be and somebody notices that the teacher is eyeballing you and says “Ssssshut uuup!'” under their breath? Yeah, well, if your name is Charlotte, you will think that person is talking to you. Spoken at speed, those words sound exactly like our name. And as soon as people find this out, well, you might as well just change your name to Shutup – because how many school-age children are going to bother calling you Charlotte when they know you’ll answer to that?

3. Your French teacher may suggest you call yourself Charles 

I haven’t been to school for some time, due to my age and responsibility for paying bills, but when I was there, language teachers liked to give each pupil their own ‘French’ name, i.e. the closest thing they could think of to your name that somebody in France might consider calling their child. In my case this should have been simple – Charlotte is of French origin after all – but if you’ve ever tried to say it in a French accent you’ll know that it’s rather tricky; it requires a lot of saliva. But Charles is a lot easier. It’s basically just ‘Charl’ and you can throw in a raised eyebrow for added effect. It’s more masculine than Charlotte – sure – but it does roll off the tongue nicely.

4. Your phone will assume your second name is Church 

Should you wish to use your phone to type about yourself in the third person, specify which type of potato you’d like to have for tea, or be so formal as to sign off with your name in a text message then, in these days of predictive messaging, your phone will assume that the next word you wish to type after ‘Charlotte’ will be ‘Church’, which, in my experience at least, is almost never the case.

On balance, it’s a very good name. A strong two syllables, a spelling most people can get their head around (except those individuals who think it starts with an S who, to be fair, do have a point) and, to top it all, there’s a dessert called a Charlotte. And if it’s good enough for a cake then it’s most definitely good enough for me.

Welcome to the club, little one.

Relationships: 36 questions to help prevent arguments

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IMG_20150201_150143-1024x1024Ever since the 36 questions to make you ‘fall in love with anyone‘ were published, it seems like every person on the internet has had their own go at writing what they think should be on the list.

And as much as I’d like to do the same, I’m not really qualified to help other people fall in love (unless you specifically want to fall in love with either chocolate covered raisins or Popchips, in which case, I am your woman).

But as somebody who never likes to be left out, I have written a list of my own, albeit a slightly more trivial one. These questions may not make you fall in love, but they might just save you a few arguments when you get further down the line. Here are 36 questions to ask each other during that marvellous early stage of a relationship to help make sure you’re actually going to get along in the long term. You’re welcome, friends.

1. In your opinion, is it OK for somebody to leave traces of toast crumbs in a tub of butter?

2. On a scale of 1 to packing your bags and moving out, how angry does changing the bed make you?

3. If you use up the last of a toilet roll, whose job is it replace it?

4. Harry Potter vs. Lord of the Rings – how enraged does that statement make you?

5. Do you respect coasters?

6. Towels smell better when they have been left in a wet pile on the floor than when hung up nicely on a drying rack – TRUE OR FALSE?

7. If I were to wear extremely comfortable clothes around the house, would you immediately stop finding me sexually attractive or simply admire my enjoyment of lounging?

8. When drunk, how amusing do you think it is to go home, make yourself a sandwich and leave grated cheese absolutely everywhere?

9. Related: if I was already asleep when you came home from a night out, do you think I would like it if you turned on the bedroom light?

10. Do you consider openness to skiing holidays to be a deal breaker?

11. If I were to leave my clothes anywhere in the house except in a drawer/cupboard, in the laundry basket or on my person, how would you react?

12. Are you available at short notice to offer life-affirming pep talks?

13. How much value do you place on hugging, cuddling and other snuggle-based activities?

14. Public displays of affection – embarrassing and out of the question, or romantic and a cost-effective way to stay warm?

15. What would your response be if I were to share amusing anecdotes from our life on social media?

16. What level of conversation do you think it’s reasonable to have in a cinema?

17. How well do you respond to feedback about your domestic abilities, such as your dishwasher loading, clothes folding and bin emptying skills?

18. Do you think there should be a limit placed on the number of leisure baths a person has per week?

19. Are there any specific times of year when, due to a love of sport, you are entirely unavailable for social activities?

20. Dancing’s fun – isn’t it?

21. If I’m trying to say something to you but failing to find the right words, how hard will you try to work out what I mean?

22. How would you describe your relationship with confectionery? a) Healthy. That word was so unfamiliar to me that I had to google it. b) Moderate. Who doesn’t like a little hot chocolate of a winter’s night? or c) Problematic. My bloodstream is now just one big strawberry lace.

23. How many episodes of the same soap opera do you think you could tolerate in a week?

24. How much excitement does the word SALE cause you?

25. What about: VALENTINE’S DAY?

26. What is your attitude to greetings cards?

27. Watching repeats of Friends every day for the rest of your life – a quirky habit or an unthinkable way to spend your life?

28. At approximately what time would you expect a ‘late’ night out to end?

29. How would the sight of somebody wearing shoes on your lounge carpet make you feel?

30. Pranks – funny things to watch on TV or something you actually like to do to humans you’re supposed to love?

31. Do you know where your house keys are right now? How frequently is the answer to that question ‘no’?

32. How necessary do you consider closing the door whilst using the toilet to be?

33. What are you most afraid of? (Watch out for key words, such as ‘commitment’, ‘meeting other people’s parents’ and ‘you’).

34. Do you understand what ‘hand-wash only’ means?

35. How about ‘remove film lid BEFORE putting in microwave’?

36. Do you think it’d be wise for us to see other people?