It is Monday evening, the first day of the working week is done. There are leftovers for dinner, and we can look forward to what the rest of the week will bring. Our weather has been, let’s say, changeable, with glorious sunshine on Saturday, some grey skies, wind and rain on Sunday, and a bit of everything today. Actually, the week ahead looks wet and wild, so time to find something good to watch and wrap up warm.
In the basket
The wonky box delivered up a butternut squash, carrots, a leek, a celeriac, more avocados, potatoes, a lettuce, a bag of purple Brussels sprouts (which we ate on Saturday) and two bok choy. I still had pumpkin leftover from last week, but remembered the pork and pumpkin meatballs I made back in March last year, so we had those for Sunday dinner with the rainbow chard. I topped the box up with spinach, some beautiful rainbow chard, apples, red onions, a couple of madarins and some red and yellow tamarillos. I popped to the local market on Saturday and picked up a lovely little loaf of rye bread, some eggs, a tray of microgreens (I really need to get organised and grow my own), a packet of locally made chilli garlic kosher salt and a bulb of smoked garlic. I squeezed a couple of cloves over the sprouts which worked well.
Eating
There was a bánh mì for lunch at work one day, and a ham sandwich on focaccia from Super Deli on another day. I had a cheese scone one day at Pandoro, good but still think the ones at Pravda are better. Cheese scones, as I may have mentioned before, are a very important food item here in windy Welly as anyone who lives here will tell you. Anyway, moving on, to the mushroom and bacon toast I had for lunch on Sunday at Main Street Deli in Greytown, which looks bacon heavy in the picture, but there was a big pile of mushrooms too.
Out and About – Pointes of View
On Thursday evening, a friend and I headed over to the New Zealand School of Dance for another one of their Pointes of View evenings of conversation. Ty King-Wall, the newly appointed Artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet and Tobias Perkins, the executive director were interviewed by broadcaster Eva Radich. It was an interesting conversation, but despite probing, we did fail to learn what will be performed next year. The photo below comes from the school’s Facebook page.
Out and About – Christmas in Winter
On Sunday, we headed over the hills to Greytown, for the last day of their ‘Christmas in winter’ month long festival. It was a rather grey day (the rain fell later) but it was still fun to see Christmas trees, lights and decorations. There have been all sorts of things on, from food trucks to artificial snow to music. If you look very carefully at the bottom left picture, you can just see Karl posing as a penguin…..
We also spotted these teapots and cups outside a shop, which are actually for sale for use as garden ornaments. The ‘tea’ is made of beads. Quite ingenious but not sure if I would want one.
Simple things
- Listening to some very loud bird song, perhaps heralding spring?
- Going to the hairdresser.
- Finding a skirt in an op shop, a pale green sweater on sale and a grey and white stripe t-shirt of the sort I have been looking for for ages.
- Placing an order for seeds…nasturtiums here we come (hopefully!).
- Getting things ticked off my to do list.
- Spotting this flower on this cactus and magnolia beside the bus stop (see the featured image).
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.
- Anne of Something Over Tea celebrates the coral tree.
- Share a coffee with Maria of Green Dreams and celebrate her daughter’s birthday with an amazing looking cake.
- Lovely to see Laurie back blogging with her thoughts on Thankful Thursday.
- Lisa of Southern Patches shares this and that (and a beautiful cat).
- Donna of Retirement Reflections takes us through July in pictures.
- Deb’s World thrived in July.
- Mr Tootlepedal has a pleasant surprise at Tootlepedal’s Blog.
- Jude over at Cornwall in Colours shows us her garden (and reminded me to order some nasturtium seeds).
- Sue over at Women Living Well After 50 writes so well on overcoming the overwhelm.
- There is always a good cup of coffee over at Trent’s World.
- .…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