Wonderful Wednesday #205

{February, is that you?!}
Hello and happy mid-week. We've made it can you believe it?!  My mid-week already feels like an end of the week so i'm wondering if i might just collapse in a heap when it hits friday!  It's a good tired though.  I've been productive, and helpful and i've pushed myself and done my best and given all that i've got and that, is celebration in itself.  Even the quiet kind of high five to yourself or an attempt to squirrel away this feeling for another week which might not have felt quite so....successful. 



I'm jumping right in this week with the greatest #wonderfulwednesday list of lovely.... 

1.  Hazelnut milk.  One of the many things that have been bringing me comfort this week and what goes with chocolate better than anything?!?  HAZELNUTS.  I swear to goodness, it's forever my porridge milk of choice because paired with a really ripe mashed banana {or indeed a couple of fudgy medjool dates should you not be fond of a banana} and a heaped tablespoon or raw cacao powder?  Well those very few ingredients equal the most indulgent tasting and most comforting porridge that there is and one that i've been turning too pretty much every work morning lately.

2.  Snow.  Because despite what you might believe we always miss the stuff in the little pocket of Cumbria i live in!  It can be full on fluffy snowflakes and white carpets aplenty everywhere else in the county but where i live is a pretty little pocket of...well non-snow!  Until Tuesday of this week!  Yes, this Tuesday.  Yesterday.  The day i started work at 6am and had to get up and 4.30am and refused the offer of a lift despite the forecast because 'Oh don't be silly they always get it wrong it wont snow here.'  Snow it did!  Allbeit for only four hours or so but it was enough for it to 'stick' and for it to create a Narnia-esque canopy above my umbrella and cling gently onto each branch it touched which made for a pretty magical wander to work even if it was slippy-slidey AND my little fingers were so cold i could barely feel them through my woollen mittens.  I wish i'd had more time to appreciate it!  Even so it was a pretty sight all of the same!

3.  More comfort food.  This time in the form of toasted dark rye sourdough with salty butter, bitter marmalade and......wait for it, the sheer and GENIUS crowning glory:  A great big zig-zag of peanut butter.  Oh MY.  Why oh why had i totally and completely forgotten the sheer joy that is peanut butter and any kind of jam or marmalade.  OR infact lemon curd.  That, i've never tried but a lovely lady i served at work the other day mentioned it after we chatted for a solid ten whole minutes about our favourite nut butters.  Is it weird that i wished we could have gone for a cup of tea to carry on our important conversation?  Probably.  Either way, we were totally on the same page nut butter-wise and that lemon curd revelation?!  GOLD.  If i didn't have a million jars of various un-lemon curd type preserves i'd already be all over that one.  Watch this space/post. 

4.   Super power. There's a weird sort of determined, little bit stressed and generally superhero-shaped energy that comes from me when i'm deleriously tired and sleep deprived.  In an odd way, it's good for me every once in a while.  Yes Tuesday's super duper smashingly long shift was longer, but man alive did i tick, tick, TICK some stuff off a list that has been growing at alarming rate since last weekend.  And even if i'm struggling to keep my eyes open as i type this to you on Tuesday evening pre-supper {i worried that if i ate there'd be even more of a chance of me falling asleep!} i feel a a big sense of satisfaction and like i've really made the very most of each second of Tuesday and barely stopped for a single second.  

5.  Nigella seeds.  Or black onion seeds.  Or as i like to affectionately call them:  Game Changers.  Is it me or does this post just get cooler each week?  Weirdly {for me!} not a seed i'd put anywhere near my toast, porridge or crumpet BUT the very best kind of seed all of the same!  Predictably adding a savoury onion-y but more than normal onion-y {see THIS is why i will never write a cook book anybody will want to read!} note to anything in it's path.  I've been adding them to crispy oven-roasted jacket potatoes: Cutting down the middle, adding lots of sea salt and black pepper and them smooshing in some Nigella seeds and salty butter - SO GOOD.  I've also added them into cheese scones instead of mustard aaaand sprinkled them into spiced carrot and turmeric soup and the other week i threw some into some cauliflower florets that needed using up; tossed them in turmeric and olive oil and lots of black pepper and roasted them until they went crispy and dipped them in hummus.  The JOY!  OH i eeeven threw some on top of the cream cheese i spread on top of an onion bagel the other day.  Mind.  Blown. Pleeease try them, they're SO GOOD.  Must stop talking about food, must stop talking about food! 

6.  A mustard beret.  Silly but true.  That little pop of sunshiney yellow has given me SUCH joy this week.  I've been wearing it to work and even throughout the day inside work too.  I wont lie, at first it was largely due to a) feeling freezing cold and b) shunning a morning hair wash on far too many occasions in favour of the extra half an hour under the duvet {have i mentioned my 6am start yet?!}  but the more i've worn it, the more i feel all sad and sorry and lacking somehow when i'm not.  It goes with all manner of colours {more than you'd think!} and i'm especially enjoying pairing it alongside a dusky pink. I feel a little bit Battenburg-esgue and when has Battenberg ever been a bad thing?!?!

7.  Mint tea.  Oh ho HO oh YES another week another tea.  Mint for calming me, inside and out and for making me feel refreshed and somehow oddly cleansed of the long and busy day that has gone before.  Mint tea is severely underrated in my opinion.  

8.  Polo necks.  Not only reserved for the 1980's or so it seems.  I picked up a couple over Winter and i'm really rather loving the extra cosiness that can only come from having your neck covered up.  Polo necks and berets in one week you say?!  And mint tea?  When is it i collect my pension and bus pass again?!  

9.  The end of January.  Ah the start of February.  The start of a month that felt like it took approximately ninety-nine million other months to get to.  Since when did December feel like it had sixty-two days and not thirty-one?!  For someone who spends forever complaining harping on about life and it's break-neck speed, even i couldn't believe how long and grey and positively eternity-like January felt this year.  I'm still riding on that new month high and i'm only the more propelled forward by so much more light; by blue-er skies, greener everythings and the the feeling that Spring really is on the horizon.  I've never given February much favour before but i'm quietly learning to value maybe even more of a fresh start feeling than January the first?!?  How strange.

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And i'm done.  I'm so very 'done' that i feel a little bit crazed and delirious from tiredness.  I'm actually worried that when i actually do stop after writing this outro; that i might fall off my seat and sleep on the floor until morning and wake up with carpet creases on my cheeks!  It's ok though.  I'm having avocado and ricotta cheese on toast and i'm beyond excited.  That in itself is more than enough to stay awake for if you ask me. 

Hows your week shaping up!?  Don't forget to hop right on over to the #wonderfulwednesday gang's posts {Jo, Helen, Michelle, Sarah, Kate, Cat, Sam, El , Kerri's, and Peta's OH and lovely lovely Ellie's post!  A lovely new and shiny recruit to the #wonderfulwednesday gang!} and to check out some equally lovely and super duper happy propelling goodness to get you to Friday!  What's been making your week merry and great?!  Share below or better still shout about it across social media using the #wonderfulwednesday tag so we can all see and can join in!
Have a lovely week!