{Cow parsley crazy! Oh! And pretty paisley jackets forever!}
Oh hello you. How the devil are you?! Here we all are again, back and ready for another list of great and good and mid-week JOY. My week has been pretty damned lovely since i have been off work since last Thursday. Man alive was it needed and it couldn't have been better timed if i'd tried. I had the worst summer cold at the very start of last week. I don't think i've had a cold since last Autumn. This combined with a bit of a stressful time at work meant i was more than ready to rest. And rest i have done! There has been a cheeky extra hour in bed each day, each day has started with all of the windows and and french doors flung open AND mostly also with some kind of toasted breakfast. Days have felt like holidays and been long and sunny and filled with riding my bike with bare legs and dresses and sandals too. I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK TO WORK!!!!!
Just joking. But if someone could arrange to give me a job where i eat crumpets, ride my bike and sit in the garden and generally just faff with things then i think i'd be more than okay with that. But to this weeks #wonderfulwednesday LIST we go.....
1. Eating outside. Well doing anything outside is 99.9% better than it is doing it inside, right? But there's something about any kind of food or drink eaten or drank outside {i guess come rain or shine but you're much more likely to find me out there with a snack or beverage when Mr Sunshine pops his floppy fedora on} that just tastes a million percent better! Sort of like....how much better a biscuit tastes when you dunk it in your tea....ish. On this weeks few days off i've eaten outside at every given opportunity and even when i haven't i've flung open our french doors and brought the outside in. Even sitting curled up on the sofa in my pyjamas with a hot mug of tea just watching the garden and listening to the birdsong is just bliss.
2. Moving. When i was little i was forever being told to sit still or that i'd 'got ants in my pants.' Fast forward far too many years to mention and i struggle to sit still for longer than twenty minutes or so. I'm a film lovers worst nitemare! If you manage to hold my full attention for any longer than that then you must be pretty special. For that reason i find relaxing and switching off quite hard. It has only been the past few years, and probably really since i got my bike that i realised that to relax you didn't have to sit still. That you could still think, switch off, relax and just be in that exact moment {did i just type that?!} just the same but by being active: walking, running, cycling - even yoga. This week i've not stopped. But when i say i've not stopped what i really mean is that i've walked, i've cycled everywhere and i've enjoyed gulping in great big lungfuls of fresh air and feeling sunshine on my pale skin at every given opportunity. And because of that one simple thing i've felt a million times better both mentally and physically.
3. Being in your pyjamas when it's still light. To be honest it's not really been getting dark-dark until almost 10:30pm here most nights lately which is hardly early. But remember when you were little and had to have a bath or shower and put on your pyjamas when it felt like it was only 4pm?! I forever felt like i was being tricked into going to bed far too early. I remember we'd run around the garden in our pyjamas with damp hair as my mum shouted to us that it was time for bed and there she was watering the garden and it was still sunny and so it couldn't possibly be true! Nowadays i feel like it's a bit like heaven getting out of the shower and wrapping up in cool cotton pyjamas and watching something or reading a book with the french doors open. It's almost a luxury and i feel extra relaxed from being ready for bed whilst there's still daylight left. Who even am i.....?!
4. The tahini-train goes next level. Just when you thought these weekly catch ups couldn't quite possibly get more exciting here we all are chit-chatting about Tahini again. Have you tried it?! Just by itself it's rocket-fuel and full of the good stuff - a high protein paste made up from whizzed up sesame seeds - essentially i guess, a more savoury nut butter....? I've been eating the stuff non-stop this Spring summer: Zig-zagged across warm purple-sprouted broccoli and sprinkled with black sesame seeds {this gal can never have too many nuts and seeds}. Sometimes i add a tablespoon to the juice of half a lemon and just half a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard and toss it through roasted baby carrots OR just in a bag of wild rocket. This week though, things got serious. My Tahini love reached new levels as Mr Tahini met a sorry looking bunch of flat leaf parsley from the bottom of the fridge and a past-its-best half of a lemon and some of them jumped in a blender and lived happily ever after and created the yummiest Summer dressing/dip. I used it to liven up some leftover quinoa in the fridge and then proceeded to eat the stuff for the next three days solid.... It's that good and also the happiest green thing you'll ever see!
5. Sleeping until you wake up naturally. I'm convinced i'd be a happier and more productive person if this was the case every day. This week i've been off work and have woken almost religiously at the same time - give or take ten minutes - each and every day, roughly 7:30am. I've padded downstairs and flipped the kettle on, done some stretches whilst it's boiled; made some tea and hopped right back into bed under the duvet for half an hour. Now i might not be quite so productive if i did that each day but HURRAH for no alarm clock apart from my actual body clock!
6. Less is more. Maybe it's the sunshine and the fact that since we had such a long and grey and cold winter i quite frankly want to lie down on the floor in a star-shape and thank the world from the bottom of my heart for each day of light and bright and vitamin D-filled sky or moment the sun shines BUT this warmer, lighter and brighter weather means i've been spending so much less time on things like my hair, my make-up and so on. Even I {little miss paler-than-the-palest-thing} look better after a couple of afternoons out in some sunshine with only SPF and a little under-eye concealer on. That coupled with a little rest, self-care and numerous laps of that dear park of ours and i feel like my skin is the best it's been in a long while. HURRAH!
7. Progress. However it comes progress is mostly always welcomed. It's a sign that something has gone the way it was intended or even of it hasn't that some kind of movement has come from it, be that in the direction you'd hoped for or not! It's all getting a little deep here and all i wanted to tell you about was how proud i am that my plants are all growing in the garden and are on the brink of flowering and i can't WAIT until i can pick all of the things!
8. The Royal Wedding. I mean i'm sorry but i couldn't not mention it. I'm one of those people who wasn't really too bothered about it. I didn't even watch the live stream. I was off work on Saturday - an oh-so-rare occurrence - so naturally i took advantage of the quiet outside and took myself out on my bike for a couple of hours of unusually quiet Saturday morning-shaped bliss. Then i watched the highlights later and cried my little eyes out. I'm not even sure where the tears came from! I don't think i've even cried at anyone's wedding i've attended that i actually know! It was MAGICAL. And on that teary note...*sniff*....
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And whizz, bang, bong and ting and i'm only flippin' floppin' done for another week of 'wonderfulling' and 'Wednesday-ing'. Spare a small thought for me if you read this on the day it's published as i'll be back at work for the first time in six days and just thought of it makes me want to hide under the duvet!
Don't forget to hop, skip and cartwheel right on over to my dearest Jo, Helen, Michelle, Sarah, Kate, Cat, Sam, El , Kerri's, and Peta's and Ellie's blogs to catch their very own #wonderfulwednesday mid-week happy lists-come-rocket-fuel for the week type lists! There the best part of my whole week! Even if i don't always get around to reading them until the end of the week! They're good for the heart and soul for who knows when!
Comments1
Oh what a wonderfully lovely, joyful list Sally! I adore wearing my PJs early, I used to do exactly the same when I was little and constantly thought my parents were tricking me too!! Tahini is god's gift to us all I swear and oh the Royal Wedding... I wasn't hugely into it in the run up, I didn't follow it much and I had my reservations on how it would be. Then I was hooked, I cried, I laughed and I just felt like you could actually SEE the love in that church. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it, it really does!!
ReplyDeleteSending alll the love your way, I hope you get many more chances to ride your bike this week.
Love,
Peta xx
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