This week’s small pleasures #459

Thistles and Kiwis

The big news in Aotearoa today has been the announcement of the winner of bird of the year. The award this year goes to the kārearea or New Zealand falcon. The bird features on the $20 note and if you want to listen to its call, click here.

Anyway, the weather today has been gorgeous, and the last thing I needed was my big winter puffer coat. The featured image is of a seagull also enjoying the good weather and below just a scene I from my lunch time walk. With the clocks going forward at the weekend too it really feels like we are heading into longer days.

A scone, a pot of tea and a very special meeting

On Wednesday morning, I had the big small pleasure of meeting Jo from Story Crumbs, And Anyways… and Brookford Kitchen Diaries for a cup of tea and a world famous cheese scone at Pravda. We chatted away about all sorts of things, and it was so nice to actually meet a fellow blogger. Thanks Jo for inspiration, thoughts and a good chat.

WOW

On Wednesday evening, friends and I headed over to the World of Wearable Art, the annual spectacular event and competition with amazing wearable art costumes, live music, dance, aerialists and even a trampoline performer this year. There are people dressed up in various costumes walking about outside as pre show entertainment which is quite fun – you can see a few below.

We got in early, and watched the live band playing music and the seats filling up. Obviously you can’t take pictures as the event is in progress, but the souvenir programme has pictures of all the costumes and is excellent value.

Each year there are six themes for designers to be inspired by when entering the WOW Competition. This includes three sections that appear each Aotearoa, Avant-garde and Open, plus three themes announced each year, which this year were Air, Myths and Legends and Neon. Below is the programme and a couple of pages from it where you can see some of the designs. The supreme winner was the one on the top right below, and some of the others can be seen here.

In the shopping basket

The Wonky Box delivered up mushrooms, potatoes and carrots – always welcome, parsnips, a bag of baby spinach and a squashed lettuce and some fine stemmed broccoli and a small head of…broccoli. As much as I like the vegetable it does seem a little excessive! Anyway, I added some asparagus, golden baby beetroots, mandarins, and then lamb, chicken and sausages as well as a few other things.

Lunch time

After the cheese scone with Jo I wasn’t particularly hungry come lunch time despite a very virgorous Pilates session, so just had a bowl of leek and potato soup at one of our local cafes. I found some lovely Danish style rye bread which I used to make cheese and coleslaw sandwiches for work on Thursday and hummus and cucumber ones on Friday. We treated ourselves to toasties and shared a bowl of chips on Sunday at the cafe next to the library – they do make excellent ham, cheese and tomato toasted sandwiches.

Celebrating

On Friday, to celebrate our wedding anniversary, we went out for dinner to Rita, a wonderful little restaurant nestled in the Aro valley. There is a fixed three course menu to which you can add things. The meal started with these gorgeous radishes with curried butter, followed by asparagus with goat’s cheese, walnuts and a fantastic dressing. We then enjoyed butterfish with very soft baby leeks and greens to which we added fried potatoes. Dessert was a very high class lamington (not your supermarket version!) served with ice-cream. We enjoyed a chablis and a Portuguese white wine along side the food.

Simple things

  • Seeing my favourite brand and style of trousers on sale with a 20% discount.
  • Going to the hairdresser for a much needed cut and tidy up.
  • Enjoying getting back in the kitchen and cooking.
  • Feeling the warmer weather.
  • Listening to the dawn chorus.
  • Raising a glass of rose prosecco on our wedding anniversary on Thursday

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 to 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.

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Published by Thistles and Kiwis

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

45 Comments

  2. This post is a delightful celebration of everyday joys, stitched together with warmth, curiosity, and a keen eye for beauty. From the kārearea’s well-deserved spotlight to the vibrant spectacle of WOW, it’s clear that you know how to savor both the grand and the gentle moments. The cheese scone with Jo, the leek and potato soup, the anniversary dinner at Rita—all evoke a sense of comfort and connection. And those “simple things” at the end? A lovely reminder that happiness often lives in the quiet corners of our week. A truly heartwarming read.

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  4. What a great week! The anniversary feast looked wonderful and I have cheese scone envy. We have 2 crossovers because I bought a pair of trousers on sale- in a different colour to those I own- on Saturday and we had a fantastic theatre night last night. It was the opening of our new theatre in Tavira, and I hope it attracts fun events like yours as well as musical entertainment. xx

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  5. A fine celebratory week! I am glad you went out to celebrate your wedding anniversary in style. It is fun to read about your sandwiches and the little things that make our lives pleasurable – I am all for those!

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  7. Your sandwiches look so good! It’s hard to get proper toasties here, usually paninis which aren’t quite the same. I do make my own, but unfortunately burnt the most recent ones! I miss my old toastie machine that I had in South Africa.

    And what a lovely place for a lunch time walk. Benches too! (I’m not sure you visit my other blog where I am posting photos of benches this year)

    https://traveltalk.me.uk/2025/09/28/bench-challenge-anniversary-24/

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    1. We are lucky in the proper toasties are readily available here still. They are so good!

      Ah yes benches! I have seen your bench challenge – must keep my eyes out for more and do a post 🙂

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  12. What a nice week you had! So much fun to get together with a blogging friend. As you know, I had my own get together last week. That fashion show looks fantastic, almost like a fantasy story. Love the idea of a coleslaw and cheese sandwich. Finally, a very happy anniversary to you and your husband.

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  14. We speak the same language…but…I have no idea what a lamington is! Guessing a sort of what we would call a cobbler? Sweetened fruit in pastry but not pie? It all sounds delightful. I love the wearable art!

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  17. Pingback: When Someone Links to Your Blog Without Permission – a day in the life of a latvian mom

  18. How lovely to meet a fellow blogger! Happy anniversary too! It’s always nice to get back to some cooking therapy. It’s our everyday special moments that bring so much joy. 😊

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  20. Happy anniversary! How nice to meet Jo for tea and cheese scone. WOW looks wonderful and your food photos made me hungry. Thank you for the mention and for your weekend coffee share. Have a wonderful weekend!

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  21. Happy wedding anniversary! The whole week seem like a long celebration, with all the fun happenings! I imagine the WOW must have been extraordinary to experience in person. I hope the weekend offers more pleasant weather and good times.

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