4 things I have loved in February
that made me feel good.
So, what is #4Things all about?
#4Things started off as simply trying to find 4 things that made me feel good. There were no rules, I just had to stick to it, which is something I struggle with. So, I started posting about it, to make myself accountable.
This is my 2025 version, where I go into more detail, with links to stuff I’ve tried so you can have a go, and hopefully feel good too.
For my lovely paying subscribers, I also endeavour to bring discount codes where I can, as an extra thank you. My goal is that you end up saving much more money than the cost of your subscription. This first one is for everyone, so you can see what kind of thing you’ll get - every month will be different.
Here we go…
I had a bread fest for Valentine’s Day.
I love carbs. Bread is my love language. I swear if you cut me open, I’d be made of dough.
My husband knows this, so as a treat on the Sunday after Valentine’s Day - because we don’t ever do anything on the day itself, it feels a bit weird – he ordered a delivery of the most brilliant baked stuff for us to spend the day scoffing.
Plain croissants, chocolate croissants, cinnamon swirls, sourdough and as a bonus, some smoked salmon. Ohhhhhh… so good.
The company are called Butter & Crust, and they are London based, so apologies to anyone outside of London. First-time users get 25% off their order, which is great. You’ll see the little pop up when you click the link below.
Because he ordered something, Nick was given a code to share to give a £5 off to anyone who uses it. (For full transparency, we will get £10 credited to our next order as a thank you for passing it on, but we are not being paid to promote them, this is a genuine recommendation). The code is: NICKF_3
Use whichever code gives you the best deal, and enjoy! This is the link: Butter & Crust
I went to a pub quiz.
We decided on the spur of the moment to head along to our local pub and join in the weekly quiz. I was up for it because it was a five-minute walk and I didn’t have to dress up. First decision: what to call ourselves? We decided our team name should be ‘First Place’ because surely that meant we were manifesting it, right? We ordered some food, got our quiz sheets and hunkered down.
Thank God we went as a group, because they played songs I swear I’d never heard in my life, but my 18-year-old squealed, jumped up in her seat and wrote something illegible down. Sport? No chance. Moments in history? Kind of; I was the only one at the table who had heard of The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, which I impressed myself with. But I also didn’t know where Tyrol was, which was embarrassing.
We came fourth.
Which doesn’t sound too bad, but that was out of four.
I’m glad we did it though, because even though we came last, it got me out the house, we all had fun as a family, we didn’t just sit looking at our phones and we had a funny story to share. We are going to try again sometime soon, and may even keep the same team name, because you never know with this manifesting stuff. Maybe it just takes a few goes to get right.
If you are London based, here is a link to the best Pub Quiz nights in town:
If you prefer to quiz in your pyjamas, here are 300 General Knowledge questions to try at home:
I did something crafty.
I didn’t become a ‘proper’ crafter, because I don’t want a load more stuff in my already full house. I suppose I became a ‘crafty crafter’? Almost like a secret agent, I didn’t tell anyone what I was up to. A while back, my friend Lisa had sent me a little kit of things to do that didn’t take much concentrating, and got me off my phone for a while.
So, I started colouring in. I’m not going to lie, it felt a bit weird at first. Like I had better things to do than to sit with some coloured pencils and internally debate whether I needed to use dark pink or purple.
But, what I liked about my little crafting kit was that I could pack it away afterwards. I didn’t have to frame it and put it on a wall, or a shelf, for people to pretend it was any good. I realised that the point of doing it was simply to enjoy ‘the doing’, not the ‘showing’, and it’s been forever since I have done things this way. It’s all about the showing now, isn’t it?
This isn’t the exact kit I had, but it’s similar: Adult Colouring Kit
And now my favourite part… what brilliant things did I watch on telly over the past month?
A Man On the Inside (Netflix) with Ted Danson. How I loved this. It’s charming, funny, clever and so heartwarming I almost burst. It’s a wonderful series about a widow (Ted Danson) who is urged by his daughter to try something different, and live a little. So he answers an advert to be an undercover investigator, looking into a jewellery theft in a retirement home. He unfurls with the renewed vigour of being ‘useful’ again, and throws himself into his mission wholeheartedly, or that should be big-heartedly, because he really, really cares about what he’s doing. The characters in the retirement home are simply fabulous, and I really, really cared about all of them too. I hope it comes back for another series.
Day of The Jackal (Peacock / SKY Atlantic). Starring Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch. This was glossy, as slick as a Bond film, and as audacious as any Mission Impossible thanks to improbable but impressive disguises, quick changes, and getting out of scrapes. I loved it because I never quite knew what twist was up ahead, right up until the last gasp. No spoilers so I won’t say any more.
And last but not least…
Love Island (ITV2). I started watching this when my daughter was about 15 and “everyone at school was watching, so why couldn’t she?”. I didn’t like the idea of it at all. But I started watching it with her, to keep an eye. And I completely changed my view on it.
It turned out to be an interesting way to have conversations in real time, about things that she had heard of, or was experiencing but didn’t understand. It led to family discussions over dinner about how the thing that so-and-so had done was called gaslighting, or observations on how one person changed what they said depending on who they were talking to, or how someone flipped their narrative if they felt they weren’t getting their own way, and made themselves the victim.
We explored manipulation, love bombing, narcissism – all the tricky stuff that can happen in relationships, whether they are friendships or otherwise. We also talked about real friendship and support, about making mistakes, owning them and learning from them. We would never have had the opportunity to see these things being played out in (almost) real time, and talk about it in a non-judgemental way. I don’t watch every series, but when Amy asks me to watch it with her, I do, and am soon sucked in.
For a month or so, we settle down every evening to watch, laugh, cry, debate the rights and wrong of what someone is doing, and then say goodnight and head off to bed. In a house full of mobiles, laptops and TVs in different rooms, having my 18-year-old daughter choose to spend her evenings watching something with me has created another layer in our connection as mother and daughter, in a random way that I never expected. But I love it, just as I’ve grown to love the show.
I also think Maya Jama is a bloody brilliant host. She makes doing something that is actually very tricky, especially during the live final, seem very easy. Looking like you’re relaxed, having a few fun chats, while asking awkward, at times provocative questions, handling an excitable crowd, while keeping to time and dealing with all the tech challenges that happen behind the scenes when broadcasting live from a different country is not a simple job. And she does it brilliantly whilst looking like she loves it, cares about everyone she’s talking to, and like a drop-dead gorgeous supermodel, all at the same time.
She’s the real Love Island winner.