This week’s small pleasures #145

In all honesty, this week was full of small pleasures as you might have guessed if you have read any of the most recent posts from the past few days (such as here and here). I can highly recommend spending a holiday week at home. Anyway, here we go with a few other things I have enjoyed this week.

Winter vegetables do not have to be boring! Red Swiss chard with sausages, spinach with salmon and cavolo nero with….not sure yet. Make a mash with a mix of potatoes, parsnips and kumara, just perfect for a winter evening.

Sunday morning is always a small pleasure, with a later than usual start, nice bread for breakfast, even bits of housework. There is time to read, time to do a little bit of a jigsaw, time to catch up on various things like…cleaning the kitchen (maybe that isn’t such a small pleasure…).

On Sunday afternoon, a friend and I headed out to the Roxy cinema in Miramar to see The Royal Ballet on film. The triple bill had been shown live back in June, but we obviously watched the recording. The first piece was by Christopher Wheeldon, Within the Golden Hour, a lovely lyrical piece based around seven couples separating and intermingling, to music by Vivaldi and Bosso. The costumes were designed by Jasper Conran. The middle piece was a bit disappointing. A new work by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, was a reworking of the Medusa myth, that just didn’t come together. The final piece, however, was quite wonderful. Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern, uses a large dance ensemble and Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs for a powerful reflection on migration. I would love to see this on stage (and am a big fan of Pite). Interestingly, today I found this review of the performance in The Guardian which pretty much sums up what we thought.

There are gorgeous flowers everywhere, brightening up winter days, as you may have seen in other posts, like these below and the one in the featured image at the top of the post, which was in the bunch I bought last week.

Finally, I turned up at work as usual this morning and found my desk covered with balloons, a card, happy birthday banners and even a wee present. What a lovely way to start the week!

And that’s it for this week. What were your small pleasures?

Thanks to Mani over at A New Life Wandering for the original idea.

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