This week’s small pleasures #285

What a week! Our hot water was restored on Wednesday as I mentioned in a previous post, and then on Friday, I woke to no electricity. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say it wasn’t the new hot water system but one of the outside lights that seems to have triggered the outage. At least Karl got back from Canberra safely and was able to upgrade to Business Class on the Melbourne-Wellington leg.

We have had some amazing weather this week with lots of sunshine and quite frankly warm weather for the time of year. The featured image and the picture below are from today. The sunshine always lifts the spirits. However, today is not quite as nice and it looks like rain for most of the coming week, so time to stay indoors and keep cosy.

So to food….and in the basket this week were parsnips which I love, on their own or mixed in a mash with potatoes, carrots, spinach, a glossy red capsicum, pears, limes and Jerusalem Artichokes to make into soup, and tamarillos, which are a bit of an acquired taste but lovely added to a salad or macerated with vanilla.

On Sunday morning, a friend and I went to The Food Show, an annual event which allows local and other producers to show case their products. I came home with bags full with venison sausages and pies, olives, breads to finish cooking to enjoy with soup, pates, herbs and spices (including a lavender salt), crackers, different flavoured olive oils (flavoured with blood orange, rosemary and black garlic) and my favourite little sardines.

Also this week, I loved Justine Leconte’s latest video from London – if you don’t know her do check out her YouTube channel, which is an intelligent look at fashion and the fashion industry. I bought some new candles, a soft, winter scarf (not needed, but it called to me from the shop window), and made scones to have with the jam I bought last week on Saturday.

So that is me for this week. I completely forgot about posting about my Word of the Year (creation) with all the things going on at home, so will have more to say on that in June. What were your small pleasures this week? Here are some other blog posts from a few fellow bloggers looking at the good things in life. 

• Carol Ann of Fashioned for Joy went to see the musical Hamilton and had fun at a farmers’ market.
• Ju Lyn at Touring my Backyard runs in the gardens and meets a monitor.
•  Natalie the Explorer loves life in May (and hosts the weekend coffee share).
• Anne over at Something Over Tea, finds some beautiful karoo violets.
• Deb’s World’s shares her family photo challenge.
• Little Pieces of Me receives a lovely bunch of flowers.
• Trent over at Trent’s World has had another busy week and cuts the grass.
• I always look forward to the Monday Motivation from Popsicle Society 
• The Annoyed Thyroid takes stock at the end of May…check out her post for the dogs if nothing else!
• I just loved the honesty and thoughtful musings over at And Anyways. It is really well worth a read.
• Scribble and Scran marks the ending of the academic year in the northern hemisphere…an spots buses.
• Follow a wonderful island walk over at Retirement Reflections…she even visits New Zealand…no not this one, another one.

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