This week’s small pleasures #176

It is hard to believe that we are almost at the end of January already. Who knows what the rest of 2020 will bring us, politics and environment wise. These small pleasures posts are designed to make us focus on the little things that bring us joy and concentrate on the positives for a few moments each week. Here are some of this week’s small pleasures.

Bake Sale success

This past week at work we had a bake sale to raise money for a couple of Australian charities following the devastating fires. I made a lemon yoghurt cake, and one of my colleagues made these cute cupcakes with koala faces on them. We raised a total of NZ$740, which was double what is usually made.

This week’s good eats

From smoked salmon toast at Squirrel on Saturday morning to the curry I made on Sunday night (the cauliflower potato side dish was particularly good) to a tabbouleh full of parsley, cucumber and tomato, a few good things were consumed.

I picked up a broccoflower (see curry above) at the market on Wednesday, and some more scallopini of a different hue to last week’s batch, and a purple kohlrabi that just looked so pretty.

Vegetables of the week

Ballet on film

On Sunday morning, a friend and I headed to the cinema to see the Bolshoi Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet. These films offer a chance to see this great company which we otherwise would not get to see. It was gorgeous, and a really lovely way to spend a Sunday morning. If you get a chance to see any of these films, then do go along.

Cat adventures

To be honest, I don’t really think this is a small pleasure…more a big thank you to a very kind person. Some of you may know that our wee cat Charlie is a wanderer. In fact, that was how we met him and later adopted him. On Saturday he somehow manage to get to the campus of Massey University, about 90 minutes human walking time from where we live. How and why we don’t know, but he was found by a cat lover who phoned me and we were able to go and pick him up. Here he is sleeping in his cat basket.

That is it for this Monday – what were your small pleasures this week? 

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

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