We have had sunshine, wind and rain this week, making the early winter weather quite variable. We are now in the period leading up to Matariki (Māori new year), which this year will be 28 June. Matariki is the Māori name for the group of stars known as the Pleiades. The constellation is first spotted in midwinter and heralds the start of a new year. Somehow, I managed to catch another cold, so worked at home a couple of days and had some early nights to make sure I was fit for the weekend activities detailed below.
You can’t beat Wellington on a good day
There were some beautiful sunny, winter days, with the pictures below taken on Saturday along the waterfront. Really – nothing beats Wellington on a good day.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, I popped into Neo, an extremely popular cafe in the city, which you can see below, and the building it is housed in (behind all the red hot pokers). I had the cheese crumpets topped with truffle and garlic butter mushrooms, chive crème fraiche and piles of rocket. This was so good, I didn’t want it to finish.
Out and about – Winetopia
On Saturday afternoon, we headed over to this year’s Winetopia, the wine festival celebrating wines of New Zealand (and this year there was also a French stall and a vineyard from South Australia). We also bought some ‘golden coins’ which enabled us to try some rather more expensive wines (over NZ$100 a bottle), a favourite being the pinot noir from Escarpment Winery. I also got some oysters with a green apple mignonette (wonderful) and lamb belly skewers with black garlic and caraway from the stall run by Rosella – the lamb being a favourite from our visit there. I also grabbed three excellent dumplings from Apache.
Out and about – French Film Festival
On Sunday afternoon we went to see Un Silence, as part of the French Film Festival. This is a really powerful film with so much to say – highly recommended if you like a slow burner of a film which builds up to a strong ending. We naturally had a coffee before hand, always served with two jaffas at the cinema we like (Lighthouse on Cuba).
In the shopping basket
There was another piece of pumpkin in the Wonky Box this week, which I roasted and mixed with feta to form the base of weekday work lunches, another piece of cabbage (which I quite frankly can’t face having eaten a lot last week), a useful bunch of rocket, some radishes and potatoes, a fennel bulb (which I used in a favourite pasta bake with pork mince) and a small head of broccoli. I still have the kohlrabi left from last week too.
This was supplemented by spinach (half of which went into the pasta bake), a few tomatoes (the last for a while I imagine given winter prices), a couple of grapefruit, more yuzus and some feta.
Simple things
- Going to the hairdresser.
- Staying cosy with a Swedish crime drama on TV while the wind and rain howled outside on Sunday evening. The sunset below was Wednesday when the weather was quite different.
- Getting a book from the library recommended by a friend and purchasing the new Laurence Fearnley – now to carve out more reading time!
- Reading this love letter to libraries (thanks to Local is Lovely)
- Seeing all the great writing courses offered by my nephew Peter Mountford.
- Getting our knives sharpened by an enterprising young man offering the service to those of us in our area. Quite wonderful.
What were your small pleasures this week? Here are some other blog posts from a few fellow bloggers looking at the good things in life.
- Green Dreams shares more beautiful pictures of all her summer produce.
- Meanwhile Lisa of Southern Patches shares her Friday Favourites.
- Mr Tootlepedal is pushing on over at Tootlepedal’s Blog.
- Jude over at Cornwall in Colours shows us her garden in June.
- Deb of Deb’s World shows us sculptures in the forest.
- Sue over at Women Living Well After 50 makes a birthday dinner.
- Natalie shows us her 5 favourite walks around Paris.
- The Glasgow Gallivanter goes gallivanting – including to Edinburgh where she found something I never knew existed – a sedan chair garage!
- And Fred shares some wonderful things from his garden in France.
- .…and all the other lovely bloggers out there. Sorry if I have missed anyone…..
Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer, good food and pretends to garden.
You can find Thistles and Kiwis on Facebook, and also on Instagram @thistlesandkiwis. If you want to get in touch, email me on lofgren@thistlesandkiwis.com