What do you search for when you're feeling down? Own up and you could win a new Mary Berry cookbook...
You're feeling a bit low, sitting at your computer or with a tablet or phone in your hand, and you open an internet browser. What will cheer you up? Doing an internet search to lift your mood is a very 21st century phenomenon but it's now a fact of modern life that we turn to the internet to cheer us up. Sometimes we know what will lift our mood; sometimes we want to be surprised: about 5,000 a month put 'cheer me up' into Google when they're out of ideas as to how to lift their spirits. My cheer-me-up searches vary depending on what I am looking for in life.
I had a long phase of Googling 'American-style fridges' before I got one - I loved looking at the beautiful double-door options with water/ice dispensers that my searches threw up. Over the years, I have Googled hallway storage, kitchen colours and lump-free cheese sauce - all in the hope of improving my home, my food and, ultimately, my mood. But my top default Google search over the last six years has, strange to relate, been 'Extra large rabbit run'...
There is a story behind everyone's default 'cheer me up' search - mine is brief and has a happy ending... I have two house rabbits who roam free in my home and have a decent-sized garden run, but oh, the idea of them running laps in a huge 'extra large rabbit run' fills me with happiness! Rabbits, the nation's third most popular pets, are the most neglected of pets of all because people think it is perfectly okay to shove them into tiny boxes and leave them there, alone, in the garden. It's only just becoming apparent to people that this is as cruel as keeping a dog or cat in a box in the garden. Rabbits are sociable, lively animals that need to run with the wind in their ears! Mine run laps of my living room, but I dearly wanted to let them run on grass without the many foxes of my neighbourhood getting them - hence my dreamy Googling.
But now it looks like I am going to have to find a new cheer-me-up search because finally, after all these years, I think I have found the perfect run - my family have agreed to give up half of our garden for it and I have ordered it! It's designed to the exact specifications that's insisted upon when you adopt a rabbit - 10FT X 6.5FT X 3FT high, and I am so excited about its arrival and about seeing my London house buns run as wild as they can on my grass! But what will replace 'extra large rabbit runs' as my new default 'cheer-me-up' search?
What's your favourite cheer me up search? Leave your comment below and you'll be entered into a prize draw to win an inspiring new 350-page Mary Berry recipe book that can't fail to cheer you up (see what I did there!). Closing date: Thursday 11th September 5pm. Happy searching everyone. And here are some more cheer-me-up ideas, in the form of remedies
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