This week Denise Mclaughlan shares other aspects of her life - she has made deliberate choices that have taken her life out of the mundane. …and helps to enhance her festive life.

Variety in my book is stimulating, it means new opportunities, it rules out boredom and rules out being stuck in a rut! What were the things that set me thinking in this direction?

It was when I looked at all the book s waiting for me to read- the variety of which - pleases me immensely. When I go to our wonderful library, I choose fiction, non-fiction, Afrikaans and English and I make a choice of different genres. I enjoy biographies, historical novels but then more specifically about the late 19th century/early 20th century and I adore novels set in the English countryside, or in Italy.

What a pleasure to read widely and to be able to completely immerse yourself in an era of long ago or to read about other ways of life in faraway places!  The library never ceases to excite me – I take my time and browse in the rows of different genres. I can look through the daily newspaper or find a magazine that fascinates me. Other options are DVDs or CDs, not to mention the courses that are on offer and the coffee shop!

Another area of choice and variety  for me are the creative colouring-in books for adults which have become popular in recent times. I love colouring in – and the books range from inspirational, the natural world, fashion and cityscapes. My special favourite- which I shall frame and hang in my home- are the Fashion fantasies - dresses designed out of leaves and flowers or a William Morris pattern book.

One could carry this theme through to many facets of one's life.... thinking about my friends who are so different and all the more appreciated for their differences. I have single and married friends, some younger and some older – there is something fresh about the young ones and something familiar in older friends. Some are there in my time of need, others inspire me, and I find companionship with all of them.

Thinking of one’s daily way of life, I believe -why live a monotonous life of doing the same things at the same times and in the same ways? Why not a life full of variety and alternatives and choices? Even holidays.... I never wanted to go to the same place year after year. That is why road trips appeal to me and train trips with different stations and landscapes to gaze at. I cannot resist using this old cliché - a change is as good as a holiday.

Even in nature and in the seasons we find the wonderful variety of new buds in Spring, the sunshine of a summer day, the change of colours in Autumn and then the bare trees on a winter’s day . I don’t think life was meant to be the same every day, but then I have always shied away from too much routine and not enough new and different ways of living your life

It is said the only constant is change. Therefore, embrace the changes that you make or that are perhaps forced upon you. Sometimes when you are in the doldrums all you need is a change of scene or a change of mindset.

So, give me the spice and color that variety in any sphere of life brings... Have you perhaps changed anything in your life recently? I hope you also experience it as refreshing and uplifting?