Wonderful Wednesday #90

{Bright as a button blue Autumn skies in all of their glory!} Happy happy HAPPY half-way through the week dear faces!  PAT yourself on the back and give us a little twirl because you've survived, you've made it and i'll bet it wasn't half as bad as you thought.  *  *  *    I'm having a week of discombobulation which i am blaming wholly on the clocks skipping back on Sunday!  I woke up stupidly early and failed to go back to sleep, despite all of my BEST efforts.  The silver lining came from sneaking two cups of hot tea beneath the duvet - all whilst the Mr snoozed soundly beside me - and a little chance to gather my thoughts and listen to Sunday wake up.  Since then though this whole 'extra hour' and it becoming darker at silly o' clock seems all kinds of WRONG!  My days feel so long whilst feeling like they're over in no time at all in equal measure - as nonsensical as that sounds.  I think it's not helping that the weather has stayed unseasonably warm too.   Leaving work in what feels like the middle of the night with a late August temperature is messing with my dizzy little head.  I don't want to say i'm wishing for cold but….well i sort of am you know!  The cold, bright, clear-skied kind though.  Just so as we're CLEAR.  I should probably stop waffling and get on with the great and good of this week so far shouldn't I?!
1.  Adele.  I know, bandwagon much?!  I can't help but love her.  She's a British {if not national!} treasure for sure.  Right up there with cups of tea, scones and trifle.  Whilst i've always loved her, now that she's tootling all around my ears lately with her snazzy new song 'Hello' {best sing-in-the-shower-song this year yet} well it's just re-cemented that love.  And the new song?  It's everything you'd expect and more.  I had little tiny tears trickling down my cheeks the very first time i heard it and that's always a good sign!  Let's cross everything she does a tour and someone will will come and see her with me!  Anyone…?!
2.  Washing your underwear in Lush bath bombs.  Whilst it *might* sound a strange concoction of crazy, extravagant and even wasteful there is logic in this little dreamboat of an idea.  The main logic being that my underwear draw is FULL to bursting with the bloody things!  I'd hazard a guess that there might even be more Lush bath bombs in there than there are knickers and bras!  Since i adore Lush, i am forever inundated with odds and ends come Christmas, Birthdays and sometimes even 'just becauses' too.  Whilst i love them i don't actually bath very often, unless i have time to while away!  Or i'm frozen to the bone!  Since i love how they make my underwear smell i've started to chip away at the back log by washing all of my very best bras in them. I even washed them in the bath last time and it made SUCH a pretty concoction that had i not also been making dinner at the same time i'd have jolly well jumped in with them!
3.  The perfect vanilla candle.  A must at this time of year but one that is particularly hard to track down!  I should have known i'd find it in the candle Mecca that is TK Maxx.  It's spicy, warm and not too candy-sweet and best of all?  You can smell it the whole time it's lit and for a good while afterwards too!  
4.  Playing with props.  Or as most people would call it:  Faffing!  If Faffing was an olympic sport than i'd sure as day is day, and night is night hold ALL of the medals.  My Tuesday tasks at work were some of my favourite: Creating mood-boards and style boards with some new pieces and a beautiful little collection of twigs, leaves and conkers.  Sometimes i really do have to pinch myself….
5.  Lovely, lovely lilies.   I'm going to be honest and put out there and say they're not my favourite flower and there was a time that i wouldn't have even given them jug-space.  But then last year just before my 30th birthday my parents bought me a bunch of the most beautiful white and pink lilies.  They were so big that they filled two big jugs and several smaller receptacles around and about our little attic.  The day before my actual birthday we travelled up to Edinburgh to stay in a sweet Air BnB flat we'd booked for three days and the Mr had mentioned to the host that it was my birthday.  When we arrived she had filled the flat with lilies and soft pink balloons!  So during our stay the lilies bloomed and their scent filled the sweet little flat and clung to us a little bit too!  And then when we arrived home a few days later, the lilies we had left all curled up had burst into bloom and our flat smelt exactly the very same as our Edinburgh one!  Even if i did have them sort of thrust upon me, lilies will forever remind me of those special few days spent with special people in special places.  This week i treated myself to the first bunch since last year and each time i breathe in their heady scent and close my eyes i can relive it all over again.  
6.  Falafels.  Unseasonable or not {i'm blaming the weather - 'cos let's face it we blame it for everything else!} i've been loving them leftover and crumbled atop my winter-y salad concoctions with torn coriander and toasted seeds.  
7.  The sweetest surprises.  I feel particularly lucky that i now work for a very small independent retailer.  It's something i've always been passionate about and something i'd always wanted to get into, to feel more valued and more of a person and less of a number.  On Tuesday morning i arrived at work to see that my boss had already been down earlier and left a big basket of handpicked apples, some brown paper bags and some recipes for an apple chutney; in our little porch, free for people to take! And make!  I won't go all silly and sentimental about the ins and outs of it all BUT it warmed my heart beyond belief and to the ends of the earth!!!
8.  Wavy hair.  My hair sits neither straight or wavy, if left to it's own devices.  And if there's one thing i've learnt it's never EVER to leave it to it's own devices.  You end up with it half stuck to your cheek on one side and slightly resembling a scarecrow on the other, usually with a penchant to static electricity to boot!  I tend to blow-dry it straight and move it about as little as possible come the following day.  The less disturbance the better.  Last weekend i bought a waving iron.  A WHAT i hear you cry!  I know, a waving iron - who even knew this kind of thing existed let alone worked and waved my hair rather effortlessly and best still…?  I waved it on Sunday night and today is Wednesday and all i've used is dry shampoo and it's still rocking and-a-wavin'!!!!  I am hooked and wondering where this dream of a contraption {that only cost £20} has been all of my life?!?!?
9.  Triumphing at food-shopping.  It's all about the simple things no?  You should know that i hate food shopping.  If i was just me i wouldn't hate it.  But then again if it was just me i'd live on porridge, toast and pots of nut butters.  You can't feed a man just nut butter with a spoon in and expect him to be happy.  We have this rule that where food shopping is concerned we'll both go together, and we'll do it all in one go, one trip, one end to the other and out - it's Sainsbury's bootcamp or nothing!  It's fair and it gets results.  It doesn't always work out though.  Things sell out, some people don't want to eat the things you suggest or you know, i get hungry.  In the latter's case it's all down hill from there.  Lately we've had what we'll just call 'a bad run.'  So let me celebrate, rejoice if you will, in this week's food shop being spectacularly simple, productive and fruitful.  You can bet your bottom dollar i'll have forgotten *something*.  Even if i don't know what that is yet….
10.  Drying washing inside, on radiators and airing racks.  I'm a celebrator and great condoner of drying washing outside in the warmer months, you can't beat it:  Getting into bed on a summer's evening and breathing in the soft, sweet smell of a summer's day is something special.  Come this time of year you don't get that.  So here's to celebrating the clean scent of fresh laundry {usually hung from every picture frame, door, or available 'hook' in our tiny little attic} wafting throughout the air and clinging to everything it touches.  
11.  Mornings v's Evenings.  I'll forever be much more of a morning person and less of a night owl.  Now that the clocks have skipped back an hour, i feel like i'm appreciating the morning light and all that my mornings contain even more.  Even if the weather is mild, the light seems extra precious at this time of year.  Since i now miss that extra special Golden Hour of an evening, i make up for it in really relishing the sunrise, my moments of quiet and adjustment into the day with hot tea, porridge laced with figs and maple syrup puddles and my favourite pyjamas.  *  *  * Come along! Don't dilly dally!  This is your chance to share your happiest things, the gamechangers, the little things that have been making you beam so far this week.  You can pop a sweet comment below, or you can tweet me or tag me in your beautiful Instagram snaps.  I'm @sallytangle on both - don't forget to use the #wonderfulwednesday then we can all see 'em!  
Have yourselves the most MAGICAL rest of week dear ones!