This week’s small pleasures #234

I guess you could say this past week has been one of ups and downs. That is of course life, and we just have to move on and keep going. As ever though, there were small pleasures that made me smile and which brought joy to everyday life.

I’m going to start with a plant that has been featuring a lot in my Six on Saturday posts recently, the tecomanthe speciosa, of which we have a lovely specimen in our garden. As I wrote on Saturday, over at the Wellington Gardens Facebook page, one of the gardeners talks about this plant as being his ‘plantspiration’. Here it is the one that inspired him in a picture I took on Saturday morning – yes it really is growing all the way up the side of the building. Regular readers probably know all about this plant already, but if you don’t, check out this link.

Moving on to something quite different, on Saturday afternoon we went to this year’s Winetopia, a wine festival celebrating the wines of New Zealand. We enjoyed several really good wines, including a rather special one from one Elephant Hill, producer of some of our favourite wine. I also enjoyed some oysters from Mahurangi Oysters. We have been to this event before as some of you may remember, and always enjoy the afternoon.

Sticking with things food related small pleasures of the week, I did make a coleslaw with the red cabbage I bought on Wednesday, and served it with a quiche on Saturday evening. We got a delivery from The Chocolate Bar of some more of their wonderful selection of special chocolate. These bars will keep us going for ages, as we only ever have one small square at a time.

We were up early on Sunday morning to watch this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. There was no competition last year because of…well, you know what. The last winner in 2019 was Duncan Lawrence from The Netherlands, and so this year’s competition was hosted by that country in Rotterdam. I am not sure how many readers are fans or know anything about Eurovision, but it is a big song contest in Europe that you love/hate/follow/didn’t know it was still running (reactions from people I know). Anyway, friends came round to watch it, and enjoy breakfast as you can see below. The winner was Italy, a good song, though to be honest this year there were lots of strong entries and any of the top five could have won. You can read more about this year’s competition here. Personally, I liked the French entry, as well as that from Ukraine. Iceland was also a strong song. All songs can be found on YouTube if you are at all interested. After all that excitement, we went for lunch at an Indian restaurant in town with friends, which was a great ending to the morning.

Finally, another picture of Wellington waterfront, also taken on Saturday morning. This part of town always lifts the spirits on a sunny day. The building you can see in the distance behind the tree is Te Papa (The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa).

So those were my small pleasures this week – what were yours? As usual, I like to feature other bloggers who have made me smile, made me think or generally shared some interesting aspects of their lives.

• Laurie over at Notes from the Hinterland goes plant shopping…and features the penultimate episode of her podcast.
• Carol Ann of Fashioned for Joy enjoys beer with friends and has a deer come to visit.
• Sanch Writes gets her first vaccine and celebrates being short listed for a writing award – how wonderful!
• Ju Lyn of Touring My Backyard celebrates her rebirthday – really worth reading about her experiences.
• Join Trent for a coffee and a chat.
• Natalie the Explorer continues to explore Toronto and brings us along on her walks. And join her for a coffee too as she hosts the weekend coffee share.
• Deb enjoys a holiday over the border in Victoria.

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