Wonderful Wednesday #226

{'Cos i've been living in white cotton sundresses!}

Hello, hello, and hello again there! How the bobbins are you?!  Tell me how has your week been...?  If you are an eager beaver and read this early-doors on Wednesday morning i'll be getting myself ready for a thirteen hour shift at work.  I am absolutely dreading it and worrying myself silly that even-though i have so much time, that i just wont get everything don't that i need to in those thirteen hours.  Crazy!  And stress is no good for anyone - at my most-stressed i'm mostly just useless:  My minds here and there and everywhere it shouldn't be and it takes me a million times longer to achieve anything because my mind can't and wont settle on just the one task!  I'm already thinking of the next thing and the next thing and the next thing after that and quite frankly it does nobody any good.  So tonight {Tuesday} i'm going to take it easy:  Have a long, cool lavendar-y shower and read my book and try and not think myself into an impossible dark little hole where i am no use to anyone!  


More than EVER, i'm going to list my little heart out and remember {and treasure} the very best bits of this week....  



1.  Melon.  Melon, melon, MELON!  I'll take whatever there is but my all-time favourite has to be watermelon.  I've been living off the stuff:  Storing chunks of it chopped up into tupperwares so it's easy-peasy to de-cant and transport to work with my lunch.  I've been saving it until right at the end of the day and eating it on the walk home in the sunshine.  Here's a game-changing tip for all you melon worshippers like me:  Chop up your melon into bite-size chunks and freeze.  When you take it out, pop a few chunks into a bowl and squeeze a wedge of lime over the top.  Torn up mint leaves are optional 'cos we're getting a bit fancy-pants and carried away over here but OH MY it might go down in history as THE most refreshing thing ever!  Word to the wise:  It's ridiculously easy to almost eat an entire watermelon this way also.  Chopping it all up sort of means you also lose track.  Don't do that.  Stomach ache is nobody's friend.....

2.  Pea pesto.  I mean WHERE have i BEEN?!  Pesto is one of my favourite things in the whole wide WORLD.  I don't know why i had never considered adding peas into the equation.  This kind of pesto will CHANGE  YOUR  LIFE, or at least your Summer.  If you're all like me lately, it's all about what can i make that takes barely any heat or time to put together at all but that tastes really rather amazing.  It's just cooked leftover peas {sometimes i also add in a few podded broad beans or edamame beans too if they're hanging around causing trouble} whizzed up with a garlic clove, a handful of spring onions, some olive oil, a great big handful of fresh mint and a little dried or fresh chilli and then salt and black pepper to taste.  IT'S HEAVEN .  Infact it's particularly yummy tossed through leftover baby new potatoes or spread thickly on top of toasted sourdough with a few dollops of as thick as you can get cottage cheese and crumbled walnuts.  I even used it spread on a tortilla wrap the other day.  I then piled in some spinach and boiled eggs and rolled it all up and it was YUM.  You are welcome my friends!

3.  Swallow-spying.  It's sort of become my evening ritual. Have a shower and pop on my pyjamas.  Then pop into the garden to water the plants and pick and any flowers or herbs i fancy.  Then to just stand and watch the swallows swish, and swoop up, up, up and and away, dancing so gracefully along the warm summer evening breeze.  It's actually quite calming to watch!

4.  Holiday weather.  It's worth noting that i am not one of those people who can lie out in the sun star-shaped.  My skin is so naturally milk-bottle white that it's nearly translucent.  I'm a restless soul at heart and so sitting still at any point is tough for me.  I like being on the go, doing things:  Fizzing and whizzing about.  Therefore i'm not naturally somebody who copes well in temperatures over, say 20 degrees.  All of that said, lately is LOVELY.  And despite all of the previous factors, i will NOT hear one single bad word said about the glorious and consistent holiday-feeling 'Real Summer' type weather that we have been so blessed with up in 'Never Quite This Sunny Consistently Cumbria.'  No i will not.  I will spread on the factor 50 SPF like the pale gal that i am, i will cycle in the morning or after 6pm and i will drink more water than i know what to do with - even if it feels sometimes like i am more water than human - I will eat all of the icy melon, be creative with all of the seasonal fruit and vegetables and be really and truly grateful.  Because i cannot actually remember a time when Summer has ever felt like this since i was at primary school.  And that's that.

5.  Blusher.  'Cos it's mostly all i've been wearing on my face, save for some SPF and if i'm looking really tired, a few slicks of mascara.  I used to hate not wearing make up a few years ago.  I got so used to my face being one colour, one solid samey all over kind of a colour.  And you know what?  News flash:  At any given time of year, {granted everyone's skin looks miles better after some serious vitamin D} nobody's skin tone is one shade all over!  Now i've come to terms with that i spend more time {and money, but not lots} on my actual skincare rather than my makeup.  A few laps of our dear sweet park and my walks to and from work in this lovely sunny weather mean that a little smudge of pink on my cheeks and i feel like i look like me.  Hurrah for sun!

6.   Summer mornings and summer evenings.  The two best parts of the day if you ask me although obviously the scales sway ever so slightly in favour of the AM vs the PM but i'll take either lately.  Mornings for the early morning light, the sound of chattering birds and for flinging open our french doors and stretching with the cool morning air dancing around my sleepy body.  And for breakfast in the garden, or tea in the garden - are you sensing a theme?!  Summer evenings for cool lavendar-y showers with my favourite scented candle lit.  For soft evening light and only fairylights to light the way.  For slathering coconut body butter on damp sun-kissed skin after a shower and curling up on the sofa in cool cotton pyjamas with the french doors wide open the smell of early evening grass  and listening to the sweet twit-twoos of swallows as they swoop and dip along on the cool late evening breeze.  And for sleeping with damp coconut-y hair and the window open as wide as it'll go. 




7.  Poetry.  By far my favourite medium, to read anyway.  Oddly enough, despite being a lover of the written word and one for always admiring a long and beautifully tangled sentence that i can get lost in, i've never tried to write a poem.  Maybe i should give it a go!  This week i've been reading through a few poems - the first time i have taken time to do this in years.  It's really affirmed my love for it and i think i might try and do a little more. Maybe i will even try and write a few verses.  Hey, maybe one week i'll write a #wonderfulwednesday poem!  I have considered a #wondefulwednesday Vlog or podcast but find just fitting in this little corner a tough job sometimes so wouldn't want to promise something i couldn't put my all into, you know?!  BUT POETRY!  Send me over your recommendations if you love it as much as me!

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And we're all done and dusted!  All listed-out for another seven days!  I do hope you're all well and that this proves useful as a little mid-week rocket-fuel for the rest of the week.  Or maybe it reminds you to, to take a few moments to count the little moments of lovely in your usually hectic, non-stop type week!

Remember to pop right on over to Jo, Helen, Michelle, Sarah, Kate, Cat, Sam, El , Kerri's, and Peta's and Ellie's #wonderfulwednesday posts OH - AND LU's TOO and soak up even more lists of great and good and jolly glorious #wonderfulwednesday -ness that they have to offer.  I am eternally grateful to these gals for their continued support and contribution.  Warms my little heart it does!

Adios!   

o