Wonderful Wednesday #218

{When you want to remember a moment forever...}
I don't think there's anyone in the whole of the United Kingdom that hasn't been rejoicing about basking in, scampering about in and generally frolicking with wild abandon in the glorious double-digit sunshine that we were lucky to have over last weekends' long Bank Holiday weekend.  I mean i worked most of it and i took every given opportunity to be outside!  Thank goodness for longer lighter evenings and sunlight from 5am!  I feel one million percent {and more!} better for a jolly great dose of vitamin D, don't you?!  



As i type {sat in my usual spot and my usual Tuesday evening slot} the sun and warmth that came with it as been all but abandoned in favour of grey skies and the odd rain shower.  But i don't even care!  I'm still riding on the euphoria that a few days of interrupted sunshine brings and as such, this weeks list has quite predictably come to me quite easily.... 

1.  Gardening.  Now i won't profess to actually be any good at the thing but i do love it so!  I'm getting better and since last years very first attempt with my very own patch of green to call my own {Albeit a little square of grass and a patio. But there are french doors, and it's south-facing and has the prettiest old Sycamore tree right at the bottom along with a beautiful Elderflower bush too!}.  I've learnt from what didn't work so well then,  and this year i'm going to be even better!  But it's not even that - the 'being better' isn't 'It.'  It's lovely to learn something new; to nurture something from being a teeny tiny sproutling {i'm making that a 'thing' FYI} into something that i hope will be beautiful and all my own doing. It's the quiet and the tinkering around and about with terracota pots on a light, balmy 'almost feels like summer' evening with only a pair of wood pigeons for company. Maybe i'm old before my time...




2.  The scent of a warm evening.  Nothing like a Spring one.  More.....sweet, balmy, slow and sleepy.  The kind of evening where you linger, loll and laze about even - maybe grab a watering can and stand on the patio in your bare feet and pyjamas with hair damp from a coconut-ty shower, watering pots galore with nothing to hear but birdsong and a gentle breeze tickling the leaves on the giant sycamore tree at the very bottom of the garden.  Bliss!


3.  Hummus. This weeks yellow split pea and turmeric spread on anything and everything as a quick 'can't be bothered/don't have the energy' sort of a snack.  With a little {read: not very much at all quite frankly} effort; spread lavishly across toasted sourdough and piled high with slow roasted baby tomatoes from the windowsill, tossed in leftover torn up basil leaves and salted and peppered too.  That's Summer supper on a plate right there dontcha' know?  Sometimes even just eaten straight out of a tub with icy cold chunks of cucumber sprinkled in black sesame seeds.  


4.   Almost bare 'Everything' sleeping.  You can't beat the feeling of cool cotton bed-linen against your skin almost as much as you can't beat the first hop and a skip right back into sleeping in pyjamas as Summer slips away.  That mixed with a wide open window and a cool breeze makes heavenly dreams.  This time of year somehow makes me need less sleep somehow too.  I've been naturally eased awake by the birdsong most mornings this week at 5:30am and have felt oddly rested and peaceful; not thrust into a dark early morning.  That said i've been curling right back up and cat-napping until my 6:30am alarm because i fear if i got up that early my tummy might expect lunch at 10am....


5.  Freckles.  Only a few moments even thinking about sunshine and the little devils dot, dot, dot themselves across my arms and you can bet your bottom dollar they'll be a few hidden under the dusting of blusher on my rosy cheeks.  I spent most of my teen years hating them:  covering them up at every given chance and wishing them away more often than i'd care to say.  But now we're best of friends.  Mostly because as soon as they appear i can get away with even less make-up.... mwahahahahaaaaa...


6.   When nature takes your breath away.  If you're me then that's all of the time.  Do you ever sit and wonder and think about how amazing the world is?! As cheesy and as maybe daf-  WAIT! No it's not silly or daft.  I love the way the seasons change, how much that impacts, affects and changes the littlest most special of things.  How all of those little things are intrinsically linked to mean that day can become night and Sunday can become Monday, May can become June and so on and so forth.  Infact if i sit and think about it too long i feel like i've fallen down a little bit of a rabbit hole!  


On Sunday evening, i cycled home from work via the park.  It was twenty-two degrees when i left work and the sky was a brilliant blue and not a cloud could be seen.  I last visited the park oooonnnn, Friday maybe?  The verges were a vast blanket of green:  Nettles, tiny sprigs of baby cow parsley yet to flower and a blanket of wild garlic leaves.  In just two days they'd become a riot of colour and an almost-overnight meadow of brilliant white wild garlic flowers, cow parsley flowers and white and blue bluebells.  I must have stood for a good ten minutes just taking it all in.  I wish you could press pause for those kinds of moments:  the kind where nature knocks you a little bit sideways.  I naturally did the next best and probably most millenial thing instead:  I saved it to my Insta-Stories.... {HERE}.


7.  Wisteria.  The very first spotting of the stuff:  Dots of beautiful lilac blooms just starting to unfurl; twisting and turning up the front of one of my favourite houses on my wander home.  I'd love a tangle of Wisteria across the front of our house but wouldn't even know where to begin growing or planting one.  I'm dipping my more green than last year green fingers  toes in with 'Climbers' with a baby honeysuckle bush i bought at the weekend.  He's been re-potted into a big terracotta pot and is happily sat next to a tangle of sweet-peas that i hope will give me sweetly scented blooms all Summer long...

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And i'm DONE!  All loved and listed up for another seven days!  Consider this your mid-week rocket fuel to see you through until the weekend.  Can we all hope and pray it's just as nice as the one we've just had?  Please?!  'Cos wasn't it the best of our lives?!  I mean i say this and i worked most of it so i can only begin to imagine how ridiculously dreamy it was if you snagged the whole bank holiday off work *begins search for typical 9am-5pm office job*.  I jest!  


Since as i've got you here, why not skip right on over to Jo, Helen, Michelle, Sarah, Kate, Cat, Sam, El , Kerri's, and Peta's and Ellie's and catch up on the best bits of their 'Lately?'  Let's reminisce about that golden sunshine and magical light altogether shall we.  Better still if you got some spare, send us some north - it's decidedly chilly and that blue sky has all but vanished in favour of a heavy rain shower or three.  It smells pretty out there though....


Sending all of the love!