This week’s small pleasures #362

Thistles and Kiwis

It is a beautiful sunny day here in Te Whanganui a Tara Wellington, with blue skies and warm temperatures. However, I have been stuck at home, having come down with something unpleasant. At least I tested negative for Covid this morning, but have spent most of the day napping or reading the new Ann Cleeves (The Raging Storm). Hopefully I’ll be feeling fit in a couple of days. In the meantime…on with this week’s small pleasures.

Spoons

I was working at home on Tuesday, and took a walk after finishing up to Thorndon village, stopping at the chocolate shop for some stocking fillers and called into one of the antique shops, really just for a browse. (The flowers in the featured image at the top of the post are nearby).

I spotted these gorgeous little coffee spoons which I believe are from the 1930s.The state of the box indicates they have probably hardly been used, and whether I do or not remains to be seen, but I think they are such fun with the coffee bean end to each handle

Sandwiches

A small pleasures post couldn’t be complete these days without this week’s sandwiches! No new ones though but two I really enjoy – the tuna melt from Fred’s Sandwiches and the egg salad (with dill pickle) from Dough Bakery. Lovely!

Spring produce

In our Wonky Box this week were some lovely looking red skin potatoes, a cos lettuce, a cucumber, some cherry tomatoes and two bright red capsicum, a bunch of asparagus, a bag of bok choy and a head of broccoli (which I roasted to have with salmon on Saturday). I topped this up with some more asparagus, a bag of rocket, punnets of blueberries and strawberries and little pots of basil and dill.

Saturday sunshine

Saturday was a gloriously sunny day. These are the buildings I spotted on my walk to Pilates in the morning. The picture at the top left below shows the Parliamentary Library, the oldest of parliament’s buildings. Finished in 1899, it stands on the former site of Wellington’s Provincial Government Building and has a small rose garden at the front. The building at the bottom right is the MLC building, a great late Art Deco building from 1939. The building was the head office of the Australian Mutual Life and Citizen’s Assurance Company, one of New Zealand’s largest insurance and investment companies in the twentieth century.

Simple things

  • Seeing the spring sunshine.
  • Spending a good portion of Sunday afternoon reading.
  • Enjoying fish and chips from our new local chippy (fish and chip shop)- and very good they were too.
  • Making the most of the asparagus season.
  • Counting down the days to the summer holidays.
  • Looking at the colours of blood oranges and lemons sitting in a bowl.

As a side note, I’ve had a few WordPress issues recently, including genuine comments ending up in the spam folder – many thanks to Natalie for pointing this out – and apologies if I missed any comments – think I have cleared them all now.

So those were my highlights of the week. 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. Also entered in the coffee share hosted by Natalie.

  • Tootlepedal’s Blog sings and watches the birds.
  • Ju Lyn over at Touring My Backyard shares more memories from Japan. 
  • Something Over Tea contemplates stairs and steps – well worth a read.
  • Deb contemplates on what she is grateful for.
  • There are books a plenty over at Jo  of And Anyways…
  • There is a tasty looking recipe for a courgette or zucchini slice over at Brookford Farm Diaries.
  • Lisa over at Southern Patches offers us a coffee – and has been knitting Christmas decorations.
  • Glad to share a coffee again with Trent.
  • Donna over at Retirement Reflections shares 20 classic novels – check out the list.
  • Sue talks about Ageing Upwards – must check this out further.
  • Natalie spots brown around in the world.
  • .…and all the other lovely bloggers out there. Sorry if I have missed anyone…..

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.com

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Published by Thistles and Kiwis

Loves summer, sunshine and cats. Beginner gardener, likes eating, cooking and reading about food

44 Comments

  2. Those sandwiches look delicious! Glad you don’t have Covid and so hope you feel as right as rain soon. Thank you for mentioning my post about stairs – there have been some interesting reactions to it 🙂

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    1. I just asked my non-native speaker husband about steps and stairs and he agreed with me 🙂
      Funny thing – I grew up in a tenement building in Edinburgh, and the whole building was called ‘a stair’. This is an Edinburgh thing – or was at least.

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  3. Lovely photos of the various buildings, my favourite is the Parliamentary Library, and the MLC buildings.
    I’m glad your new local fish and chip shop is nice, important to have one of those close to home.

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  4. First of all I hope you are feeling better soon. I love those little spoons. The wonky box and the sandwiches look delicious. I especially love the angle of the pictures of the buildings. It really gives them perspective. Thank you for sharing my post. Have a wonderful week.

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  12. Sorry to hear you were ill! I am just reentering the land of he living myself. Timing was not ideal – today everyone in the entire US is cooking a turkey whether they like turkey or not. I was sick during the crucial shopping period so not turkey here, folks! Don’t despair – we will have a nice beef stroganoff over a mix of white and wild rice. Not traditional, but delicious all the same! The sandwiches looked delicious. I am finally getting my appetite back!

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      1. I do like turkey, actually. Don’t really think of it more than once or twice a year, but love it when I sit down to a plate swimming in gravy! Wild rice stuffing, mashed potatoes and rich gravy, winter squash, cranberries, some kind of green vegetable. It is a taste of my childhood memories. Plus, turkey avocado swiss sandwiches on sourdough? Mmmm! And a big pot of turkey soup. Well, we can do it for Christmas. The stroganoff was delicious too and since we often serve it over white and wild rice, I got a wild rice fix anyway.

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        1. A good turkey can be nice but when it gets too dry…to be honest, I can’t remember the last time I sat down to a turkey dinner…maybe 15 years? The sandwich you describe – now that does sound incredible!

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  13. I love the idea of eating seasonally … but as you know, we in Singapore are not as in tune as all our produce is imported. Enjoy the asparagus!!!

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  16. Hi Barbara, I do hope you’re feeling better by now! Funny thing seeing your sandwiches, we stopped at a bakery on our way home from dental appointments and the last sandwich available was the curried egg and lettuce – it was so delicious and I can’t remember the last time I had one! Just what I needed obviously 🙂 Those spoons look pretty cool! Have a great week. #weekendcoffeeshare

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    1. A couple of days of rest and I felt much better by Wednesday evening (just as well as we had a dinner reservation for Thursday!). I think egg sandwiches, when well done, are one of my favourite sandwiches. Thanks for stopping by!

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  18. Pingback: angle – Touring My Backyard

  19. Beautiful pictures! We’re moving into winter here. Woke up to a couple inches of snow (I’m not a fan). So I confess to harboring some weather jealousy 😀
    Have a great week 💜

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  21. I hope you’re feeling much better. Your beautiful photos brightened my day as we had a dusting of snow this afternoon. Thank you for the mention and for your weekend coffee share.

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