This week’s small pleasures #310

Can you believe it is just under 5 weeks until Christmas? There are so many things going on right now at work and in my diary that I can’t quite believe that I will soon taking three weeks of summer holiday.

It is a bit grey and rainy today, but we did have some gorgeous weather last week as you can see. On Wednesday I decided to take the cable car from Kelburn into town. The walk takes me through the village, from where you can get a good view of the wind turbine in Brooklyn (look carefully in the picture on the left).

So to food, and of course the highlight of the week was our visit to Noble Rot for a wine tasting and degustation menu as I talked about in my post on Wednesday. I enjoyed a cheese scone for morning tea before my hairdresser’s appointment on Wednesday, and had lunch at vegan cafe Sweet Release on Saturday, enjoying pesto and roasted red peppers on hash browns with a lovely heap of salad. It is a nice place to sit and read and enjoy either a sweet treat or a lunch whether you are vegan or not.

In the basket this week, well, more asparagus of course, more broad beans and peas, tomatoes, cucumber, blood oranges, another grapefruit (see bottom left with the orange skin) and strawberries. We enjoyed the asparagus (roasted) and broad beans from last week’s basket as you can also see below.

The Lumino City Lantern Festival was took place on Friday and Saturday down by the waterfront. While we were unable to attend the evening event, some of the stalls on the World Precinct were open on Saturday afternoon, including the Swedish one. Karl had volunteered to help out, so I wandered down to take a look, say hello and check out this giant inflatable blue man eating an ice-cream outside Te Papa museum. The Swedish stall was easily identified by the large Dalarna horse standing outside. There were cinnamon buns for sale, as well as some other goodies.

The weather on Saturday was a bit mixed, but the sun eventually came out. There were dance performances, a salsa class and men playing the Alpine horn outside the Swiss stall. And the sign below? Stand between the L and N and have your photo taken as the I in Wellington.

On Saturday evening, a friend and I headed over to the New Zealand School of Dance to see the end of year performance from the contemporary students. It is always a small pleasure to see the young dancers on the first steps of their careers, and pick up on their enthusiasm and energy.

Although I haven’t read any of Laurie Graves’ young adult novels, it was great to hear the news that her new book Of Time and Magic has just been published. She has dedicated to the book to her blogging friends, which was such a lovely thing to do. The blogging community has introduced us all to so many interesting people out there across the globe, and those closer to home as well. Last week we had our Secret Santa Christmas present event at work, and I received this gorgeous tile with a tui gazing at flax flowers, shaped like himself. The person who chose it had asked a colleague what I would like, and she suggested that the gift giver check out my blog. I am so delighted with the thought that someone could guess what I would like from my humble little blog.

So, 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 over at Fashioned for Joy shares her delights of the week – I love how her posts pop into my inbox on Fridays to brighten up my working day.
• Ju Lyn at Touring my Backyard introduces us to a new sculpture, Perpetual Blooms.
• Natalie the Explorer shares fun attractions at the Bay of Fundy.
• Anne over at Something Over Tea spots swathes of yellow flowers.
• Share a coffee over at Trent’s World and hear about his week.
• Popsicle Society motivates us on Monday.
• Green Dreams drinks coffee from a mug with a Dalarna horse on it…and talks about the Crowd Farming Project.
• Check out the Friday Favourites over at Southern Patches  
• Retirement Reflections shares her reading and muses over rating systems.
• And Deb also shares recent reading in the What’s on your bookshelf? challenge
• As does Jo over at And Anyways.

Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer, good food and pretends to garden.

You can find Thistles and Kiwis on Facebook, and also on Instagram @thistlesandkiwis. If you want to get in touch, email me on thistlesandkiwis@gmail.com or lofgren@thistlesandkiwis.org