It is Monday evening, the first day of the working week is done. There are leftovers for dinner, and we can look forward to what the rest of the week will bring. Our weather has been, let’s say, changeable, with glorious sunshine on Saturday, some grey skies, wind and rain on Sunday, and a bit of everything today. Actually, the week ahead looks wet and wild, so time to find something good to watch and wrap up warm.
In the basket
The wonky box delivered up a butternut squash, carrots, a leek, a celeriac, more avocados, potatoes, a lettuce, a bag of purple Brussels sprouts (which we ate on Saturday) and two bok choy. I still had pumpkin leftover from last week, but remembered the pork and pumpkin meatballs I made back in March last year, so we had those for Sunday dinner with the rainbow chard. I topped the box up with spinach, some beautiful rainbow chard, apples, red onions, a couple of madarins and some red and yellow tamarillos. I popped to the local market on Saturday and picked up a lovely little loaf of rye bread, some eggs, a tray of microgreens (I really need to get organised and grow my own), a packet of locally made chilli garlic kosher salt and a bulb of smoked garlic. I squeezed a couple of cloves over the sprouts which worked well.
Eating
There was a bánh mì for lunch at work one day, and a ham sandwich on focaccia from Super Deli on another day. I had a cheese scone one day at Pandoro, good but still think the ones at Pravda are better. Cheese scones, as I may have mentioned before, are a very important food item here in windy Welly as anyone who lives here will tell you. Anyway, moving on, to the mushroom and bacon toast I had for lunch on Sunday at Main Street Deli in Greytown, which looks bacon heavy in the picture, but there was a big pile of mushrooms too.
Out and About – Pointes of View
On Thursday evening, a friend and I headed over to the New Zealand School of Dance for another one of their Pointes of View evenings of conversation. Ty King-Wall, the newly appointed Artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet and Tobias Perkins, the executive director were interviewed by broadcaster Eva Radich. It was an interesting conversation, but despite probing, we did fail to learn what will be performed next year. The photo below comes from the school’s Facebook page.
Out and About – Christmas in Winter
On Sunday, we headed over the hills to Greytown, for the last day of their ‘Christmas in winter’ month long festival. It was a rather grey day (the rain fell later) but it was still fun to see Christmas trees, lights and decorations. There have been all sorts of things on, from food trucks to artificial snow to music. If you look very carefully at the bottom left picture, you can just see Karl posing as a penguin…..
We also spotted these teapots and cups outside a shop, which are actually for sale for use as garden ornaments. The ‘tea’ is made of beads. Quite ingenious but not sure if I would want one.
Simple things
- Listening to some very loud bird song, perhaps heralding spring?
- Going to the hairdresser.
- Finding a skirt in an op shop, a pale green sweater on sale and a grey and white stripe t-shirt of the sort I have been looking for for ages.
- Placing an order for seeds…nasturtiums here we come (hopefully!).
- Getting things ticked off my to do list.
- Spotting this flower on this cactus and magnolia beside the bus stop (see the featured image).
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.
- Anne of Something Over Tea celebrates the coral tree.
- Share a coffee with Maria of Green Dreams and celebrate her daughter’s birthday with an amazing looking cake.
- Lovely to see Laurie back blogging with her thoughts on Thankful Thursday.
- Lisa of Southern Patches shares this and that (and a beautiful cat).
- Donna of Retirement Reflections takes us through July in pictures.
- Deb’s World thrived in July.
- Mr Tootlepedal has a pleasant surprise at Tootlepedal’s Blog.
- Jude over at Cornwall in Colours shows us her garden (and reminded me to order some nasturtium seeds).
- Sue over at Women Living Well After 50 writes so well on overcoming the overwhelm.
- There is always a good cup of coffee over at Trent’s 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 lofgren@thistlesandkiwis.com
Thistles and Kiwis 
We have been buying a medium, lower North Island wonky box since last Christmas and find them to be of good quality and value for money. They have introduced us to some new vegetables and some that we don’t normally buy in our grocery shop. I think they are great and will continue to support the Wonky family.
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We get the small lower North Island one and find there is more than enough for the week. They do make you get creative though with cooking!
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I have taken a cue from the birds that, inspite of the icy weather, spring is on its way and planted some nasturtium seeds last week. The pleasure of ticking off items on one’s to-do list is great – especially to have got the dreaded income tax returns behind me!
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My to do list needs to get tackled again this week! The birds know more than we do….
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Love the teapots!
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They are fun in a big group like that outside the shop.
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Recently I bought a solar “watering can” much like those teapots. It’s pretty at night. I may post it in my next blog.
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Thanks so much for the mention. It is good to be back. Such a lot of lovely, simple pleasures in your post. I really like those teapot garden ornaments.
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Thanks Laurie – I now wish I had bought one of those teapots…..next time we are over maybe.
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If you do, that will surely count as a small pleasure.
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A lovely week! I really like those teapots!
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Yes they are quire fun.
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i just landed upon wordpress and fortunately found your blog and all those people you mentioned would definitely go through them, you just motivate me to write my own weekly recap and share the small pleasures life has to offer. reading this post felt like a letter you would send your friend and the pictures and how you conveyed it, this made m happy about life. Thank you for sharing
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Thank you.
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I shall look forward to your nasturtiums, you always have some lovely colours and you inspired me to buy some different seeds. Mine are just beginning to flower now!
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Fingers crossed! I should get my seeds soon (just in time for the real winter weather to hit of course…).
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Love those teapots and teacups, I fancy one in my garden! 😘🌼🌸☕
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They are good fun.
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I think that the teapots might drive me mad if I had one in the garden. The biggest pleasure of the week was watching Tom Pidcock win another gold medal. What a brilliant racing mind he has to go with his exceptionally good legs and bike handling skills.
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Yes I did wonder about the teapots – I thought they looked great outside the shop but not sure if I would want one in the garden, given wind and rain and so on. I am afraid I no nothing about cycling but good to hear the UK get a gold.
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We are somewhat addicted to watching professionals pedalling. It is hypnotic.
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Hi, Barbara – Those garden teapots are quite fun, but like you, I am not sure that I would want one. Thank you so much for the shout out. It is greatly appreciated! ❤
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I think the tea pots are fun outside the shop…but I can imagine they would get full of rain water and fall apart?
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My thoughts exactly! 🙂
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Oh Barbara I want one of those tea pots!, they look amazing! Another lovely post celebrating the small things that give great pleasure. Thanks for the shoutout.
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The tea pots looked fun outside the shop. Thank you for stopping by.
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Greytown looks lovely having the festival of Christmas in winter, it makes the cold weather more cheery!
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It does!
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We have wonky fruit & veg boxes here too… though it was just how fruit & veg looked when I was a kid! 😀
That food looks delicious!
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Yes….fruit and veg were much less uniform when we were kids 🙂
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Is all the delicious veggies on your Wonka box local produce? Can you grow avocado in your area? I so wish we could grow avocado here!! I love avocado, it is one of my favourite foods in the whole world. Enjoy your week. What are you going to read during the rainy days ahead?
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Yes they are and yes avocados grow in New Zealand, so they are local. I am about half way through ‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow’ by Gabrielle Zevin which I am really enjoying. Then….well, hard to say looking at my pile but maybe a cosy crime I borrowed from the library.
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I love the Christmas in winter idea, seems right mentally. Guess that’s all I’ve known and I love the way following your blog across the other side of the world broadens the mind. I so want a weekly wonky box, yours always seems amazing. I got quite disappointed with our weekly delivery and killed it. Might need to look out an alternative.
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It is quite a fun idea to brighten up the winter. At least we now have the matariki Maori new year holiday in June/July to brighten up the winter. I have to say I am quite impressed with the wonky box – sometimes hard to get through everything and it does force you to think about what to cook – except for what to do with bok choy!
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