{My nightly walk home from work view...}
Who can believe we're knee-deep in July?! Who can also even believe that it's been pretty much solidly warm sunshine for what...over a month now?! I've become so accustomed to it that i'm a little bit worried what might happen to me when it finally decides to leave us! I genuinely can't believe how much more energy i've had, how much happier i've been and how much better i've eaten. I mean i think i eat a pretty balanced diet all of the same but i feel like i've been much more creative and innovative with what we've eaten for supper and i've really enjoyed cooking from scratch and preparing food a lot more.
Am i the only one who's not yet bored of the heat?!
I think it's high-time we cartwheeled right into this weeks #wonderfulwednesday happy list...
1. Hummus. I mean i've always got love for this stuff. I go through at least one pot per week - heavens sometimes two. I'll put it on anything and everything and it's just an all-round great fridge staple. Lately i'm all about beetroot and mint or split yellow pea and turmeric. What's best about the stuff is come this kind of weather: The hot, sticky, no energy to even turn an oven on let alone a stove ring; well you can pretty much build a decent and filling meal or snack from hummus. Mid afternoon hunger pangs?! Chopped 'whatever veg you've got' and hummus - win win! And if you're in a bit of a supper quandary, i love adding hummus to a big plate of salad, leftover sweet potato wedges, roasted veg cous cous etc. We even use the stuff as a pizza base on pitta bread too. I have also been known to just eat it from a spoon, sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor! Sometimes hunger just comes out of nowhere...
2. Summer mornings. I just can't get enough. Buzz off with your 'it's too hot' summer weather moaning. I'm useless in the heat but that said i've just been making use of the cooler mornings and evenings and always making sure i have a cool shower before bed. But summer mornings are just heaven. I stand and drink a mug of tea on the patio first thing and just collect my thoughts for the day - even for just ten minutes. It totally makes a difference to my mind-set for the day. Then i sit and eat my breakfast at the table with the french doors open and the cool early morning breeze tickling my ankles and the birdsong my only company. It's a little bit lovely. I'm far too often sad to actually move and get ready and fear i could sit there and collect my thoughts for hours on end!
3. Sleeping only half under the duvet. Do you know what if it was a million degrees i'd still need some sort of duvet to snuggle up to or at least to be partially under! As much as i wish i could sleep under just a cotton sheet or on top of the duvet entirely, i just can't settle! Heaven is sleeping half in and half out. Just enough to feel an evening breeze from an open window dance across my bare skin whilst having enough of the cool cotton quilt to snuggle up to. I {weirdly!} have been sleeping really well in this weather! Just waking up quite a lot earlier. I am much more productive earlier on in the day though so i have just been going with it and getting up and just easing myself into the day a little more slowly and gently.
4. Picking sweetpeas. I'm vowing to grow even more things next summer since this years flowers have turned out so well! Picking sweet-peas takes me right back to being little and i've been loving how much i can't keep up with the daily blooms creeping up our trellis in the garden and flowering overnight! I feel like i add a few more to the vase in the kitchen each morning before i give them a little watering. I also love how the smell fills our kitchen - and i especially notice it first thing in the morning. And on the odd day i miss picking the sweet-pea flowers that have opened, come early evening as the temperature cools, you can really smell the sweet scent in the garden.
5. Making my own lunch. I'm feeling proud and really enjoying the fact that i've got back into making my own lunch to take to work each day. I'm usually so easily swayed by an extra ten minutes in bed and not leaving myself enough time or being organised enough to gather up ingredients that inspire me to want to create something for my lunch. Also sometimes it feels like it's tricky enough to meal-plan suppers alone for two of us for seven days at a time, that often the thought of having to sort out lunches too can seem daunting! That extra time in the morning though - born from this sneaky spell of beautiful blue skies and sunshine though is doing wonders for my mornings! It's also quite meditative when i give myself the time to prepare my lunch and some snacks each morning. I'm determined to keep it up as the months go on and summer slips into autumn.....
6. Actually wearing summer clothes without hesitation or a single shred of doubt. More than that, buying actual summer clothes to wear in this country and actually wearing them. I went full throttle last weekend and bought a broderie anglaise white cotton sundress and i have actually lived in it. When has this ever happened?! When have we ever trusted the weather as much in our whole lives?! Hurrah for bare legs every single day, for not taking any kind of cardigan or jumper {who remembers those things called coats?!} with you anywhere and not even giving it a second thought! If only you could depend on every single season. I mean i would two-hundred percent accept a long and cold winter like last years if i knew this was what i got come June. Eeeeeasily.
7. New potatoes and tomatoes. Because there isn't a single time of year but right now - maybe even this very second - that both of those things taste like heaven on earth. Oh and maybe strawberries and raspberries two. I can take or leave tomatoes the rest of the year you know. I prefer to roast them and have them piled on sourdough toast. But come summer? I could eat a bowl of baby cherry tomatoes from the little porcelain dish on our kitchen window-sill. And new potatoes? Hells bells they are dreamy tossed in nothing but salty butter and fresh torn up mint. Hot or cold i'm not fussy. HURRAH FOR SUMMER FOOD!!!!
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And i'm all done All! Loved and listed and tip-tapped out before a Tuesday night supper of a great big summery salad with two kinds of hummus and maybe even some seedy flat-breads - you can't tell me i don't know how to live! Would you judge me if i told you i'd been looking forward to it since this morning?!?
Don't forget to hoppity-hop 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 - blogs to catch up their very own #wonderfulwednesday -shaped happy lists. And tell me what's been making your week fantastic too?! Leave a sweet comment below or give any of us a nudge on Twitter or Instagram {i'm @sallytangle} using the #wonderfulwednesday tag!
Comments5
Sally, I beg you...please create a cookbook! All of your snacks and meals sound DEVINE!
ReplyDeleteI never think to sit out in the garden in the morning but it does sound lovely. Hopefully when we're in our own place, I'll have somewhere to sit and gather my thoughts too xx
I'm in no way over the sunshine and warmness, isn't it divine? From the early morning coffees in the summer house to the outdoor yoga in the late afternoon sunshine yes yes yes yes YES!!! Also, I second El - get a wee cookbook on the go, stat.
ReplyDeleteM x
Oh Sally what a beautiful round up, yes to early mornings and the coolness they bring!! Yay to planting more sweetpeas for next Summer and oh my goodness, hummus is my jam!!!!
ReplyDeleteSending lots of love your way,
Peta xx
www.pe-ta.com
Sally your lovely wonderful list has perfectly captured the essence of summer for me. IT is can't be bothered dinners and light flow-y dresses. The way you are able to capture those moments is perfect.. I know *exactly* what you mean.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to food (because food is the best thing ever), I have been gorging on... wait for it.... CRUSHED new potatoes. MMM. You boil them until they JUST turn tender then you put them in a pan with melted salted butter and some herbs, slightly mush them with a potato masher to increase the surface area and wait until they go golden. They are HEAVENLY and taste glorious cold!
Will be buying a tub of hummus now as now I have a craving for it! xx
Lynsey || One More Slice
Lovely list, Sally. I too can't sleep without a duvet but, in this heat, always have my hands and feet outside which seems to be sufficient. I'm loving the certainty of bare legs and arms every day although my bank account's crying because I keep buying more clothes. Usually, my meagre summer wardrobe is enough for our rubbish summers but this year, I need to supplement! x
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