Wonderful Wednesday #221

{Beautiful blooms whichever way you look...}
You know that feeling...?  When a wave of sheer exhaustion hits you in one huge swoop and it suddenly occurs to you that you have in fact worked another eight days in a row!  That's my Tuesday evening feelin'.  So let's all be thankful that this post makes it out to you at all and please courteously look past the terrible lack of punctuation and cast your pretty peepers quickly past any spelling mis-haps you might notice whilst you're here!  


That said i'm running on somethin':  A heady mix of sunshine, double figure-d temperatures as far back as at least this time last week {?} and probably a considerable few litres of Lady Grey tea for extra good measure


Shall we celebrate the best bits since this time last week....?!?  


1.  Sun.  Not just Sun.  I mean i could sit here and write a whole post precisely dedicated to that burning ball of gas {?} up above and how much of a difference it makes to every single last thing.  I wont.  But i could.  This week's 'Sun chat' is the Summer Sun kind of Sun - typically the kind that arrives from nowhere.  The kind you just wake up to - blindingly bright and a sky light on clouds but with air so humid and heavy that you feel your hair start to double in size even as you lift your sleepy head from the pillow.  That said it's also the Sun that means it's okay to freeze anything and everything - wedges of lime, ice cubes with edible flowers {a sure-fire way to perk up any kind of beverage - iced tea or otherwise - for the kind of awkward fuss pot that doesn't really drink anything other than tea and water}, grapes, leftover spinach, crushed watermelon {granita style - served best with wedges of ice-cold cucumber}.  And eat everything outside, always.  Especially early morning porridge topped with frozen berries and nothing but two wood pigeons for company.  But the very best bit...?  Windows and french doors flung open until almost 11pm and long chats under the stars.  This kind of consistent sunshine is so rare up here, it's felt like the very best thing to happen in a long time!


2.  Acai powder.  For smoothies i thought.  Iced berries 'whizzed' up 'clitter-clattering' in a blender with a scoop of the thickest creamiest coconut yoghurt i could lay my hands on and maybe even frozen into ice-lolly moulds too.  I plan to try this, this week.  As far as i got last week and into the start of this one was adding it to my morning porridge {yes i still eat porridge in the Summer!} alongside a fudgy, spotty sweeter-than-sweet mashed banana and topping it with peanut and coconut butter and frozen blackberries and blueberries.  It was the the purple-ist breakfast that i think i've ever eaten but it tasted all kind of yummy!  And i'm not sure you could fit anymore antioxidants into one bowl of porridge if you tried.... *flexes muscles*



3.  Bare feet.  Well you know what it's almost always bare feet at home over here.  Unless it's minus a million degrees and then it's sheepskin slippers all of the way!  But this weeks warmer temperatures reminded me of how lovely it is to pad about on cool wooden floors at home with bare feet.  How comforting it is to feel the warm patio stones against to soles of your feet and quite how lovely bare feet on cool green grass is.  It's the little things sometimes always!



4.  Bare legs.  I know, i know bare 'this bare 'that' this week!  Bare anything come this time of year!  I jest.  After the longest Sunday at work on a bank holiday weekend, spent cooped up doing pages of percentages and figures and nonsense, nothing was more lovely than riding my bike home; via our pretty bright green and leafy park;  wearing a sundress and feeling the warm breeze tickle my knees;  tug at my hair blowing behind me and propel me all of the way home with a pretty scattering of freckles as a sunny souvenir!  




5.  Home buys.  Buying for our home sometimes beats buying for me.  Scratch that, buying home bits and bobs always beats buying for me!  You only have to open our cupboards, rummage in our bedding chest or cast your eye around the squillion cushions scattered across our bed or sofa.  And know that to sit or sleep anywhere in our home you pretty much have to remove 95% of the soft furnishings so you can fit on!    Last weekend i did a mini H&M homeware shop {their Spring Summer stuff is just the bees knees!} .  I picked up some new pale green leaf print curtains for our office {i will get it finished!}, a new rug {which may or may not end up on the wall yet} and some storage knick-knacks, some new cushions {'cos we are short on them *cough*} and some new bedding.  Homeware shopping is the BEST!  And there really is something about a change in the weather which just makes you want to update things and have a little refresh, don't you think...?!




6.   Cobbled together suppers.  The kind that are born from that awfully British excuse of 'it's too warm to cook' AKA let's just get lots of little things that don't need cooking or very much attention at all or really go together but then we can live off them for at least two suppers and maybe even lunch too.  I'm talking fresh olive bread, anti-pasti, pesto, baby new potatoes, hummus, fresh mint and yoghurt, pickles, cheeses and chutneys.  Also AKA how to make yourself feel like you're on holiday even when you're working eight days in a row AND the whole entirety of the bloody bank holiday.....me bitter...?  Noooooo....



7.   Candles on Summer evenings.  You know me, it's candles any time to be honest. But there's something quite lovely about dotting tealights about the home on a lighter evening.  Inter-mingled with the odd Citronella candle and the sweet scent of my new favourite Summer fragrance oil in our little burner:  Peony and Sage.  

*  *  *

And i'm all done, dusted and feel like this post could have almost been three times the size had a sudden wave of tiredness and the thought of a leftover falafels, crusty bread and hummus for supper not all occurred to me at the exact same time {aswell as a face mask and maybe some tea and chocolate before bed too} and made my tummy grumble beyond belief.  Eat or sleep?  Eat or sleeeeeeeep?!?!?   




Whilst i ponder life's most important decisions, go and sneak a lovely peak at Jo, Helen, Michelle, Sarah, Kate, Cat, Sam, El , Kerri's, and Peta's and Ellie's #wonderfulwednesday posts and marvel at their very own happy list and list of lovely to celebrate.  It's exactly how i'll be spending some of my day off tomorrow.  The rest of it will be spent hunting down donut peaches.  I'm planning a hot lunch date with a couple of them, some torn up mint leaves, cottage cheese, chopped walnuts and some sourdough.  You can't say i don't know how to live over here.... 

Much love!
xxx