This week’s small pleasures #42

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve had a chance to do a small pleasures post, but here we are again with a weekly round up of things I have enjoyed this week.  Charlie heads up the post, as he has returned from the cattery, and rediscovered a former favourite fake fur blanket, which he sleeps on for hours and hours.

Our trip to Vancouver

Not strictly this week, but we arrived home last Monday which is kind of this week…anyway, catch up on all the posts if you wish (Vancouver vacation, The one where we went up a mountain and saw snow, Fish, birds and jellyfish: Vancouver Aquarium, Raining in Vancouver, Granville Island: beer, food and shopping, A place of ideas, a place to explore, The sun just touched the morning and Staying buy the bay in Vancouver).

Some BC wine

We were given a present of wine from British Columbia which we enjoyed with dinner.  It was a nice, dry wine and very enjoyable.

A new chocolate

I always say I don’t like chocolate, but the truth is I don’t like cheap chocolate bars.  I am such a snob when it comes to chocolate.  So I thought I would try some from La Petite, based in Hawke’s Bay, and which only uses organic raw ingredients.  I got some with orange and toasted sesame seeds, though I also fancy trying the lemon and sea salt.

Tea

To be honest, this tea was not a small pleasure, though I kind of liked the presentation, and my cup of tea in Mojos’s at the Saint James Theatre before Saturday Pilates is a weekly habit.  They are now serving  Zealong Tea which comes from the Waikato here in New Zealand.  I haven’t enjoyed either of the ones I have had so far, so this week tried the green tea with lemongrass and ginger.  The tea leaves came presented in a mini jam pot that you add to the hot water in the glass tea pot.  And here I think is why the tea here is so unpleasant – wrong brewing.  It should be leaves first and then the water added, with boiling for black tea.

Useless fact of the day: there are 20 branches of Mojo in Wellington, as against 12 McDonalds.

Crumble

With a bunch of hard pears in my fruit bowl, I decided to cook them up with a little cinnamon, then top them with a crumble made of a mix of flour and oats, and a sprinkle of slivered almonds. Delicious.

Thanks to Mani at A New Life Wandering for the idea of the small pleasures post.