This week’s small pleasures #390

Thistles and Kiwis

Today is the King’s Birthday public holiday here in New Zealand. The sun came out in the afternoon, and lit up the house with its golden light, as we read, listened to podcasts and pottered in the kitchen, roasting pumpkin and making meatballs. In fact, the week was a relatively quiet one, but with a lot of small pleasures.

The Adam Portraiture Award

On Thursday lunch time I popped into the New Zealand Portrait Gallery to see this year’s finalists in the Adam Portraiture Awards. The gallery is house in Shed 11, a Category 1 Historic Place by Heritage New Zealand. I wasn’t too keen on the winner of the prize, but loved this one by Laurie Roodt (entitled Not Entirely) which I voted for in the ‘people’s choice’ and David Jones’ Study of Esther by the fig tree.

A cheese delivery

I love a good cheese, and even though I shouldn’t eat lots of it, a good piece of a special cheese cannot be resisted. I ordered four from Over the Moon, who in my opinion, make some of the best cheese in the country. I got a goat blue, a sheep’s cheese, the lovely pink peppercorn brie and their new garlic and chives spread (which I hope will be a good substitute for Boursin – note to Ally of Nigella Eats Everything).

In the basket

I popped into Common Sense Organics on Wednesday and picked up a bunch of cavolo nero and one of rainbow chard, a bargain bag of limes, some herb salt and anchovies and…2 golden beetroot for my second ‘beetroot experiment’ of the year. Regular readers know I don’t like that root, but golden ones are less ‘beetrooty’ and look so pretty.

The Wonky Box this week delivered pumpkin, a kholrabi, mushrooms, potatoes, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and a lettuce. I supplemented this with apples, pears, spinach, yams (oca), shallots and a little bag of yuzu which was lovely to see on sale. I also picked up some crackers from Baked Dane to have with the cheese.

Lunch times

On Wednesday, I went to the relatively newly opened cafe and pastry shop Glou Glou, which I had heard a lot about and wanted to see for myself. It certainly is a lovely space, but a little pricey I felt. I had a savoury crumpet with some admittedly very good smoked salmon, but it was a rather small offering for the price. On Friday, I crossed the road from work to the cafe in the library in town for one of their always tasty sandwiches, this one was tomato, pesto and mozzarella, and today we went to our local cafe for cheese, ham and tomato toasties.

Morning walk

On Sunday morning, the sun was shining and all looked lovely, so I took myself for a walk down and around a local park. I spotted this completely out of season agapanthus by the pavement which definitely made me stop and look. There was a football game going on, lots of small children on tricycles and bicycles, dogs, walkers and runners, as well as lots of bright yellow gorse bushes.

Simple things

  • Enjoying finding new strength in my Saturday Pilates class.
  • Cooking – both old and new dishes (think pea soup, think gnocchi with mushrooms, bacon and sage from dish magazine, think lamb and feta meatballs, nestling on couscous).
  • Spending time in the kitchen – always a happy place.
  • Going to the pub with friends and eating fish and chips.
  • Watching a blackbird tossing aside the wood chips to get at worms and making a mess on our lawn 🙂
  • Spotting more little fungi in the garden.

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 shared in the weekend coffee share hosted by Natalie.

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 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

29 Comments

  2. Sounds wonderful! I love your small pleasures posts. It reminds me to look at the bright side. I honestly don’t remember what the small pleasures of last week were. Maybe I should write them down when they happen. I guess my mom coming over a few days ago was a small pleasure. We watched a “Mother’s Instinct”, took a walk, and then had ice cream at a nice ice cream store. That was Thursday. Saturday I went to a book club meeting and we discussed the book “AnxiPeopleople”. It was a nice meeting. Then I went to my parent’s house and we all watched “The Sleepover” and put mud face masks on. That’s all I can remember though. The rest is routine and drama. My morning coffee is possibly a small pleasure.

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  4. Hello Barbara, a long weekend is always good isn’t it? I hope you are settling into your new home. You’ve been there some time now I believe. There is always something we can find the positive in. Today Mike and I had another COVID booster and it didn’t hurt and so far so good with no side effects so happy with that. Thanks for the shout out and have a beautiful week. x

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    1. Yes a long weekend is always great! We’ve been here 3 months now, and while our study is still a mess, and we have pictures to hang, the rest of the house is now settled. I guess we should get Covid boosters too – there is a lot around just now. Have a lovely week!

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  6. We had our holiday Monday last week, sometimes known in Scotland as Queen Victoria’s birthday to my surprise. I guess it’s the same principle. Thanks for the mention, and I’m glad you enjoyed your virtual trip to Northern Ireland. It might not be over …

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  9. I liked the two portraits that you liked, especially the David Jones which really appealed to me. I am entirely with you on the merits of buying sheep and goat cheese (which I did this Saturday at our market), but I am not at all keen on cheese with things that are not cheese in it. They distract from the cheesiness in my view.

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  10. Hurrah! A Boursin substitute! I need details haha how was it? And the goat blue sounds like heaven (coincidentally I had a goat blue today!). What a lovely relaxing week you’re having, how did the beetroot recipes go?

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    1. The goat blue is excellent, and the sheep one I got was divine. I have yet to try the Boursin substitute but will let you know! OK – so am now converted to golden beetroot as they are not nearly so strong. Success!

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  12. I also had some rainbow chard today 🙂 I’ve had plenty of it this week as it just keeps coming. Your veggie boxes always looks so inspiring!

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