This week’s small pleasures: episode 15

This week’s small pleasures comes to you on a Sunday, as tomorrow evening I’m off to see the documentary film ‘A Ballerina’s Tale’ about Misty Copeland.  It’s a fund raising event for The New Zealand School of Dance, so I hope it is well supported.  Thanks again to Mani over at A New Life Wandering  for the small pleasures post idea!

1  Birthday

It was my birthday last Sunday, and as I wrote about in my last post, we went for dinner to a local Italian place.  Good food and friendly service – just right.

2 Food shopping

This may sound strange, but just going grocery shopping again after being away is a renewed small pleasure.  I actually like wandering round supermarkets and food shops, browsing, not always sticking to my list.  It is always a pleasure choosing a loaf of bread for Sunday breakfast and deciding which vegetables to buy.

Red chard, yams, kumara, celeriac, avocado, lemon, tangerine, kiwi fruit

3 Cake

I made a lemon yoghurt cake on Saturday – kind of post birthday, kind of weekend treat.  I used the recipe from My Garden Kitchen by Unna Burch of The Forest Cantina that I have used before.  It makes a really nice light cake, good with an extra dollop of Greek yoghurt.

Time for cake

4 Cups

We bought two more Mumin mugs from Iittala when we were in Sweden, and it has been great to use them for our post dinner coffee on a Saturday evening.

New mugs

5 Flowers

Yes it is winter, but there are still lots of flowers about here in New Zealand.  It is always green here, always things blooming and blossoming.

As seen in the Botanic Gardens

Just outside our front door

In the garden

6 Sunday lunch

We had friends from Scotland who are here in Wellington for a few weeks for lunch today.  Roasted veggies and chicken, hokey pokey ice-cream with Jaffas (the children, big and small, had to be introduced to this Kiwi classic lolly/sweet) and Whittaker’s chocolate for desert.  Keeping it simple.

And there we have it – just a few things I’ve enjoyed this week.