Guilty pleasures

The prompt for today's #BEDM post is 'guilty pleasures'.  I looked on Wikipedia which defines a 'guilty pleasure' as 'something one enjoys and considers pleasurable despite feeling guilt for enjoying it'.  This could be due to a fear of other people discovering one's embarrassing tastes in e.g. music, television, junk food.

Why should I feel 'guilty' about the things I find pleasurable? As long as they're not hurting anyone, then why should I feel guilty about spending my free time the way I want to spend my free time?  Okay, so perhaps I could use a spare half hour to do something worthwhile (whatever that may be) but I'm an adult, I can make my own decisions.  I don't have any pets or children so my free time is responsibility-free.  My friends know all about what I find enjoyable (and probably agree with many of them) so I'm not afraid about people discovering my tastes in television or eating habits!

So rather than 'guilty' pleasures, let's just turn this into 'pleasures'.

I tend to have a home-cooked meal each day, which is normally relatively healthy and contains plenty of veg.  Sometimes, however, I eat this:

potato waffles, fish fingers and a good dollop of ketchup.  Not a vegetable in sight.  This is often eaten when I'm late back in the evenings and want something quick, or when I'm perhaps feeling a bit sad and need cheering up.  This dinner never fails to make me smile.

I read a lot.  I read contemporary fiction, I read classic books, I read 'literary fiction' that's won big awards and contains words I have to look up.  But sometimes, I want to read this:

I loved the Malory Towers books when I was younger, and I love them now.  I also love Roald Dahl and have recently discovered I quite like David Walliams.  So what if I'm the tallest person in the children's section of the library?  When I was about 10, my mum expressed concern to my year six teacher that I was reading books I found too easy (think The Babysitters Club series and Point Horror) and so I wasn't pushing myself, but my teacher (who, incidentally, wrote the most accurate school report for me ever) said it was good that I was reading, full stop.  Reading something is better than nothing.  Tomorrow I might be in the mood to sit down with the latest Pulitzer Prize-winning novel but right now I fancy some boarding school shenanigans.

'Taste' is a very personal thing.  I, for one, hate those dolls you get covering toilet rolls.  I feel funny just thinking about them.  I also laughed at people who had covers for their boxes of tissues.  It's a box of tissues!  It's hardly offensive! Why spend money covering it up?  Then I saw a pattern and made one of these:

I've actually made four, one for the bedroom, my desk and the coffee table (Ben said we didn't need any more) and one as a tongue-in-cheek housewarming gift for a friend.  It is utterly pointless, and ridiculous, but it was free (using up the little bits of yarn in my box) and I quite like them.  I've made some beautiful, sensible, crocheted items but sometimes, I just want to cover another tissue box.

I  love Christmas.  Love it.  So much so, there are still two Christmas decorations in the living room as I really like them and they are now on display permanently.  One of my favourite tree decorations is this:

Yep, it's a Christmas whale.

One of my favourite things to do is this:

read in bed.  Either in the mornings before I need to get up, or in the evenings before I go to bed, or even if I want to read during the day, bed is the comfiest place to do it. Squishy pillows, a plethora of blankets, sorted.  I never feel guilty about reading in bed.  I love it.  The blanket in the photo above is a Slanket, a blanket with sleeves.  Some people have laughed at Slankets.  Why?  They keep your arms warm!

I also have been known to eat chocolate spread out of the jar with a spoon, watch television shows such as Geordie Shore, dance around the house to '90s pop, read Chat magazine and I can sing my way through Grease (including the ramalamalama bit from We Go Together).  Do these make me feel guilt?  Nope.  Although I will add that I just ate some carrots and houmous whilst listening to a Radio 4 podcast (A History of the World in 100 Objects, very interesting) and earlier on today I finished an issue of National Geographic and listened to the Overture from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro.  Everything in moderation!