This week’s small pleasures #71

It’s time again for this week’s small pleasures, a way of focussing the mind on the little things that bring a smile to the face.  This post is a little earlier than normal, as tomorrow, Monday, is the Labour Day holiday and we’re off out and about.

Sunshine

If you follow Thistles and Kiwis on Instagram, you might have spotted this picture already.  This was Wellington during the week, and one of those days to remember how lucky we are to live here. You can see Charlie is also enjoying the sunshine in the featured image above.

This week’s flowers

There are peonies everywhere, but I loved this display of hyacinths seen during the week.

Dining out

On Friday we went to the newly reopened Tinakori Bistro, which has turned itself back into a French inspired restaurant. Bread is brought to the table automatically, with a great butter, glistening with salt crystals.  Karl had the ‘steak frites’ and I had the fish (trivally) served with Puy lentils and a saffron sauce.  We also had a side order of green beans with almonds, and were left the butter to add to them.  Nice food, decent prices and a good start to the holiday weekend.

Food shopping

In this week’s basket there was some pasta, asparagus, cavolo nero, courgettes, oranges and lemons (of course), and the dill goat cheese from The Drunken Nanny.  I love the lemon one, so am hoping great things from this too.  There was also some pumpkin spread to add variety to breakfast toast, and some edible flowers because I think a few petals sprinkled on a salad look so pretty.  One the left, is some lavender extract which I used in some biscuits – but more on that in the next post.  Oh there was also a punnet of early strawberries….what more of a small pleasure can there be?

Comfortable shoes

These aren’t strictly new, but are so light and comfortable, that I thought I should include them!

Thanks to Mani over at A New Life Wandering for the original idea, and do check out Middle Europe‘s Small Pleasures too.

You can find Thistles and Kiwis on Facebook, and also on Instagram @thistleandkiwis.  As for Twitter….am totally inactive these days.  If you want to get in touch, email me on thistlesandkiwis@gmail.com