Wonderful Wednesday #163

{Not the best photo BUT LOOK at all of the wild garlic!!!}

"By the power of #wonderfulwednesday!!!" {anyone else remember Thundercats...?  Just me then. Oh okay...}.  This week has left me feeling worn out, a bit 'meh' and generally like i just need a bit of time to myself.  Work is a little bit stressful and i think I'm pushing myself a little bit too hard.  BUT i've got two days off together {Tuesday and Wednesday} this week which is a treat itself after working all weekend SO i intend to take it easy.  I'm calling on the power of this sweet spot and my #wonderfulwednesday gang {you can find the link to their posts right at the end of this post} as all i need to get me back on track....


I feel a happy list coming on... 


1.  Green.  I think i've probably sung the praises of all things green on here recently.  Hey that's what Spring is all about isn't it?!  Emerging from all that {feels} dark and grey and 'blah' into flashes of green and bright blue skies.  This weeks' 'Greenism' comes courtesy of the sweet soft blanket of wild garlic that currently carpets the woods than run alongside the cycle path i use through our local park.  I could smell it before i even saw it!  I can't wait for it to flower it's soft white flowers and for the smell to fill the air even more so.

2.  That extra hour.  Because there was no way i was writing a #wonderfulwednesday without expelling my love for the extra hour of daylight.  Even if *technically* that was at the end of last week.  Ah i can't even put into words how lovely it is to wake up and go home in complete daylight.  The sun didn't set today until almost 7:30pm!!!  It really does feel like there's an extra chunk of the day left when i get home of an evening and like the world really is my toaster.  Even if i use that time to 'pootle' around the garden with a cup of tea.  It really is bliss!

3.  Photo friends. I wanted to tell you this little story because it made my whole WEEK. And it only happened on Tuesday!  I pass the most beautiful house with the most beautifully twirly whirly magnolia tree outside each day.  Each day i tell myself I'll stop and take a photo because it really is so pretty but i usually don't.  It's on a busy road {I'm forever worried I'll look like a bit of a plonker!} and right at the top of a big hill {I'm usually on two wheels and flipping cream-crackered by this point} but on Tuesday i did. I was just taking the photo when i noticed that another lady, also on a pretty bike had stopped next to me.  We had the LOVELIEST chat about the magnolia tree, and the house and how we both would like to live there and she confessed that she'd taken a photo the day before also and showed me!  She was so lovely!  I wanted to ask if she had an Instagram account but thought it *might* be one step too far.....Hurrah for blossom buddies and for...well, BLOSSOM!

4.  Warm salad.  I know what you're thinking.  It sounds wrong.  Salad is fresh and crispy and NOT warm.  But hear me out.  I watched a Nigel Slater cookery programme over the weekend where he concocted what he called a 'Spring Vegetable Stew' and he used lots of green vegetables:  Peas, green beans, mangetout, broad beans etc and LETTUCE. I'd never ever thought to have lettuce warm and i was intrigued.  We always have a handful of sad looking lettuce at the end of the week {we do our grocery shop on a Tuesday} so on Tuesday lunchtime i threw.....some edamame beans, some butter beans, some peas, some mangetout and a handful of very sad rocket leaves and a big handful of even sadder looking spinach into a big frying pan on a low heat with a little scrape of coconut oil.  I only warmed them through until the leaves had wilted and then i piled it high on a plate and chopped an avocado on top.  Oh and a little zig-zag of soy and ginger dressing and it was IMMENSE.  I don't use that word lightly.  All the veg i used would have probably been thrown away otherwise, since they were just odds and ends and the leaves were definitely past their best and a little on the turn if i'm honest.  It was easily the yummiest lunch and it's made me think about other ways i can use lettuce warm..... WHAT a revolution! 

5.  Birdsong.  Again...am i repeating myself?!?  Either the world gets quieter OR  the birds get louder come this time of year but the songs they sing are BEAUTIFUL.  In other ornithological related news our garden has suddenly, quite out of nowhere become the garden that ALL the birds want to come for breakfast, lunch and tea! Hurrah!  Since the addition of a few fat-balls {which i have since discovered are basically bird-nectar!} we've had many types of little visitors:  Starlings, blackbirds, blue-tits and the sweetest little fluffy robin i've named Roger.  I know what you're thinking and you'd be right.  I DO need to get out more....

6. That bike.  I woke up on Tuesdays' day off feeling like i could sleep on forever. Work has been a little stressful lately and the temptation to curl back up and go back to sleep for another couple of hours was all too appealing.  But the sun was shining, it was 8am and I'd already had an hour an a half extra sleep than i usually would on a work morning so i forced myself up and out.  As soon as i got out in the sunshine and rode that bike i felt a MILLION times better.  I think it was a cracking cocktail of sun, fresh air, peace and quiet AND the bike but for the millionth time i ask 'why doesn't everyone have a bike.'  If i was Prime Minister I'd give them FOR FREE.  There's nothing they don't fix there honestly isn't.  

7.  Roasted garlic.  It's not secret i love garlic.  In any form, any way, any how and in anything.  But there's something extra special about roasting those little bulbs:  placing a whole one and lightly crushing it with a knife and dropping a few in amongst some chopped red pepper, courgette and 'past-their-best' yellow tomatoes; tossing them in olive oil and roasting them altogether for a little while.  Once they had softened i took them out, squeezed the sticky garlic cloves from their skins and stirred threw a little raw spinach.  I stirred it altogether a few times - the tomatoes too had gone deliciously sticky and sweet and the spinach wilted down and i could have actually quite happily sat and just ate it as it was.  But instead i stirred it through some warm pasta and seasoned with lots of black pepper and sea-salt and a scattering of toasted pumpkin seeds.  Mmmm.  Just MMMMMM!!!

8.  First warmer weather pyjama-y sleeps.  Which actually just translates {if you're me} as sleeping only in a loose cotton top and pants.  Heaven.  Absolute and utter heaven.  Especially since said day also coincided with clean sheets and hair wash day too.  That was a good sleep RIGHT there.  

9.  Waking up to bright, bright sunlight for three days in a row!  I had to include this as right now {Tuesday afternoon} as i am writing this i've had to abandon ship #wonderfulwednesday and dash out to the garden to bring in the bedding from the washing line as it's POURING rain.  Ho hum.  On a plus though, the spare room-come-office-come 'we still don't what it is yet' room now smells DELICIOUS.  Every rain cloud....

10.  Rhubarb.  I've been really craving something sharp and sour lately and saw some rhubarb in our local Sainsbury's this week and it was SO bright and pink and wonderful and i knew instantly it was just what i wanted.  I've bought a bit too much so I'm looking froward to being a bit creative and trying to use it in a few different ways. First though, I'm DEFINITELY poaching some with a little muscovado sugar and eating it with cold custard.  Just because, is they're ANYTHING yummier??!  They're might also *have* to be a crumble AND i might do something with some for making my porridge pink.  Watch this space....or you know, my Instagram stories.....

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And just like that and as per usual, we're all done and dusted!  I'm loving how easy these happy lists are coming lately.  Even of i've had a bit of a trying week and I'm feeling a little 'not like myself/tired/un-inspired'  etc; i sit here; collect my thought and think for a while and realise that actually I'm really lucky and that in the grand scheme of that thing called 'life' it's actually not so bad after all.  

OH don't you dare forget to pop on over to  Jo, Helen, Michelle, Sarah, Kate, Cat, Sam, El , Kerri's, Mimmi's, Martina's , Peta's , Kelly's AND  Emma's blogs and catch their very own happy lists #wonderfulwednesday style!  Because you can never have read too many.  Even if you don't write one yourself, reading a few is somehow quite cathartic and puts life into perspective somehow.  I promise!  

Until next week.....