Grati-wednesday

Last night we went on a bike ride along the local canal/nature reserve so my expression of gratitude is slightly delayed.

Along with everyone else round these parts I am super grateful for the sunshine and light evenings.

Tea! I'm sensing a theme, I always love tea. At the moment tho I'm experimenting with the additives in my diet, so only one dose of caffeine each day. I've just got home and made myself a 'proper' cuppa, excellent beverage.

Chocolate as well. I'm nibbling a couple of squares with my tea. Since Monday I've been focusing my eating on food with as little processing as possible. Lots of salad, fruit, veggies, brown rice and potatoes. So I'm extra aware of this choc-o-treat. Everything in moderation tho, including moderation!

Super gratitude for the chance to see many good friends I don't see often enough.

My bike, and living close enough to nice places to ride it.

Last on my list this week is how thankful I am to have a yummy trip away to look forward to this weekend. Especially as it includes a half day on Friday!

How's your week been so far internet peoples?

Lavender-ade

Another discovery this weekend, inspired by sunshine and the need for cool refreshment.

Lavender-ade

Ingredients;
small handful of lavender leaves
sprig of leaves and a lavender flower - to decorate
caster/icing sugar to taste
hot water
carbonated water (cold)
ice (very cold)

How to;

1. put the sugar and hot water in a pan and disolve the sugar (only a teensy bit of water, just enough to disolve the sugar)



2. chop the lavender leaves into small pieces (wash them first if you're worried about bugs or animals wander about in your garden!) and add it to the pan



3. mix it all up for a good few minutes so the flavour comes out of the leaves



4. turn off the heat and leave the mixture to cool



5. fill a glass with ice cubes (pick one that's good for relaxing in the sunshine with)



6. pour the cooled syrup over the ice



7. add fizzy water (again, to taste)



8. stick the sprig and flower in the top at a jaunty angle



9. sit in the sunshine and enjoy

Wow, 9 steps. It's really not that complicated I promise. No pictures though, the camera wasn't within reach and I wasn't getting up once I was down this afternoon!

Simple weekending

My garden is becoming my life. Today has blasted hot, sun, balmy breeze, glorious deep breath feel better, thank you world for smiling on me today. And I have spent as much of it as possible outside. I'm still sitting out here now, being all cafe culture via our wireless. It could be my dream farm in france (or spain/portugal/bulgaria...any warm europen country with relatively cheap small holdings to be had).

Apologies for the blogging absence, I've been thinking about why I write on here and the thinking is taking time. The rest of life is taking time too, and inspiration to write hasn't been strong enough to actually make it into typing after everything else that fills my days. I want to write when it fires me up and makes me feel alive, not becuase I feel I 'should'. I'm feeling a lot of 'should' pressure in life at the moment; should have a clean/tidy/finished house, should be motivated, should be looking for career progression, should be making new friends, should be doing more, should be doing different, should, should, should. I think a lot of it is internal pressure that I'm putting on myself without consiously realising at the time, expressing internalised ideas about what is 'doing well', 'good', 'proper'.

What I have been doing is spending two lovely relaxed days with many of my favourite people in this world. There was tea, cake, an art cafe, curry, films, chat, laughter, chilling, bubbles, fairy lights, wine, almost fireworks and more tea (always more tea).

I've also (finally) treated myself to Gala Darling's Love and Sequins, by taking advantage of her celebratory half price sale (Same sex marriage was legalised in New York State this weekend - it seems fitting that she chose to celebrate by making it easier for people to get her ebook about being yourself and living the right life for you).

I actually have a heap of books and ebooks and links and podcasts about figuring yourself out and being ok with who you are. Unfortunately I've been finding it hard to take the time to focus on it all and see if there's anything useful (another 'should'). Love and Sequins comes with mp3s, which are burning on to CDs for my daily commute as I type. It starts tomorrow :)

So thank you to all those who visited this weekend, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Look out for the fireworks in August!

Look what the garden grew

Tonight I came home to a lovely surprise...peas! So most of tonight's stir fry is justthisminute fresh from the garden.

There are big plans for the weekend too. Poetry slam tonight if we get ourselves organised enough. Then a picnic tomorrow, at a secret location, rollers by a bbq with the church group i've kind of being going to for a while (more off than on).

In amongst all these things I've been thinking about what I do, why I do and what it makes me think and feel about myself. Watch out for an introspective piece about that soon, that will hopefully give some thoughts to think about too.

Grati-wednesday

Argh, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!

I've been working my way through a little patch of funk but that just makes it more important to think of what I'm grateful for...

Homegrown salad picked every day from our garden

Time spent with amazing friends, and plans to do it again soon

Everyday adventures with my husband. On Monday night we explored a lovely local-ish park and wandered over a heap of fields. I live near countryside (if you look in the right direction)

My cat, she's been giving me lots of kitty cuddles

And now hopefully back to our scheduled programming

Dinner, in a windmill!




Schitzell, no noodles