Last weekend, I went to Preston Park. It’s two minutes away from my new flat and my favourite park in Brighton, and I wanted to show a friend the roses, so off we went on Saturday evening.

It’s not big, but there are hundreds and hundreds of pink and peach and white and yellow roses. OK, so they’re not wild, as this blog title might suggest (I just wanted an excuse to quote this gorgeous song), and I imagine they take an awful lot of looking after, but I love them all the same. It was a nice 15-minute stroll around, and I found a couple of perfectly plump, blousy flowers that literally made me gasp. It doesn’t take a lot to make me happy, but flowers will pretty much always do it. This is the way to do summer hygge – no need to make a big effort at all (and I’d really rather not when it’s hot), but a little wander to somewhere pretty will do it.

So why am I telling you this? Well, a few days later I decided to order some flowers for the flat. I went for some exuberantly pink peonies (from my usual favourite, Bloom & Wild – £10 off your first bouquet if you follow this link) and thought nothing more of it. But when they arrived, I was very pleased to see some sweet little pink and green roses peeking out. I hadn’t even noticed them when I ordered my bouquet! But it got me thinking…

… we should make more of an effort to invite the things that bring us joy into our lives again. The roses made me happy on Saturday, and they made me just as happy on Wednesday. The hygge from the rose garden now has a new little home in my flat, and as much as I love those peonies, the cheerful roses make me smile every time I walk past them. They serve as a reminder that I should pay more attention to the things that make me happy and strive to make them a bigger part of my life. The more of my time and mental energy I spend on the things that cheer me up – my hygge – the less I’ll have available to waste on the things that don’t.

I’ve been thinking this week about the things that make me happy, and there are so many, and they’re all so easy for me to amplify. I should bake more, and write more, and read more, and do more art, and explore more. I should spend time with people who enjoy my company and make me happy, and live the creative, curious, tolerant and open-minded life that matters to me.

So when you come across something you find beautiful, don’t just hope to stumble across it again, like I did with my bouquet. Seek out the things that make you the happiest. Life doesn’t always connect the dots for us, so if you find that route home or that shop selling INCREDIBLE Danish pastries or that unreal view of the sunset, make a point of inviting it back into your life over and over again. Why take a chance on it not popping up in your bouquet?