Skip to main content

Fabulous Friday Frivolity.

Let the good times roll. Here are my five happy things for this week:

1. That's right, we're starting with the most important thing in the world. New shoes. *grin* Aren't they lovely? Aren't they beautiful? Not a blister do they give, nor a pinched toe. Bliss.


2. The most marvellous chicken pie in the whole wide world. Gordon Ramsay might have a foul mouth, but the man can cook. Also, the hidden bonus to this recipe is that I found it in one of the cookbooks at my last job and wrote it down on what turned out to be my last day there. *grin* Fortuitous timing. Also, Himself says he likes it even better than my lasagna, which for him was previously the pinnacle of my cooking expertise. For years. So this is a big deal.

3. That's right. It's Paddington Station. For one, I grew up obsessed with Paddington Bear. For two, due to the new job, I now travel from Hammersmith to Paddington Station every day. This means that every morning and every afternoon, I get to watch people (some in a hurry, some lost, some having a leisurely coffee and a chat with friends, elderly couples holding hands dressed in an abundance of tweed) and absorb my surroundings. Paddington is beautiful, and twice a day, it's mine.


4. One of the things that I've always found charming about this country is the fact that contractors are obliged to hide construction behind constructed wooden walls. So they have to build walls before they can even start working on the building behind them, and it's not like they're just a few sheets of plywood duct taped together, it's proper well constructed painted woodworking with trim. In areas like Kensington or Chelsea, it's tastefully white or light green to fit in with the neighbourhood's sensibilities. In Camden or Soho, it gets decorated. I love graffiti art.


5. This one is my favourite. Even more than the shoes, or the pie. Just so you're aware of how much happiness this generates for me. I bought a hibiscus plant at the pound store. That's right, it was a pound. It seemed a little dry, but I reckoned it'd be fine. Then I forgot to plant it. For about three weeks. It stayed in its box, roots wrapped in plastic, for three weeks, and that's on top of however long it had been in the shop in the first place. When I came across the poor little thing in my travels through the house, I thought there was no way on earth it would still take, but I soaked the roots and gave it a go. Lo and behold, look at him! Can't wait to see what colour he blooms.


So, those are my five happy things for this week. I'm actually really enjoying this, I look forward to writing about it all week as I tally up my random smiles, and it gives me a valid excuse to carry my camera around London with me.

Speaking of which, I've been planning a dedicated post to "Why I Love Living in London", maybe that one will take shape at the weekend. Have a lovely bank holiday. x

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Updates all around.

So, we've had our UK baby shower. Saturday just gone we had a houseful of people, same setup as our normal Thanksgiving arrangements, just different food. Rather than mash and mac'n'cheese, I did finger foods and pink desserts. If you need a seriously decadent and delicious lemon bar recipe, let me know, I found one on Pinterest a few weeks ago for Strawberry Lemonade Bars that I used for the party, and they are truly droolworthy. We were gifted a truly random assortment of bits. Some people used the list we registered for, some people went with gifts that meant something to them personally (like a replica of a childhood bunny from one particular friend), and some went with "pamper the mother-to-be" options. Then, of course, there was Darth Bunny. That's right, Darth Bunny. See below. It was a good day. Himself's best mate from childhood came up from Essex with his new wife to stay the weekend, there was at least one representative from every offic...

Thanks.

So, right now I should be baking four pies, a few dozen cookies, a carrot cake, and some dinner rolls. That's before prepping all the meat and veg for tomorrow's yearly Thanksgiving bash at ours. What am I doing instead? I'm watching my daughter throw puzzle pieces around the room and cast her eyes around for the next household item to destroy. And enjoying every second of it. It's not like we had a near-death experience last night, but a trip to A&E was close enough to suit me. She's totally fine, she just slept really fitfully, I realised she was burning up, and then she had a weird little episode where she wouldn't look at Himself or me which prompted me to jump in the shower with her, still in my pj's, trying to get her temp down. When that didn't work, the panicky mother in me had us all in the car on the way to the hospital. They checked her ears and throat (and the tongue depressor made her lose everything she'd eaten in the last ...

Life as we know it.

It's been a crazy couple of months. We found out that New Kid has junk, which Himself is very smug about. I got food poisoning for the second time this pregnancy on Easter Sunday, which lasted for a week instead of the usual few days. That's the fun of my body protecting New Kid instead of focusing on healing itself. By the end (after a night in the ER on IV fluids and anti-nausea meds) I wished he could have gotten a slight case just so he'd feel too bad to keep trying to kick his way out from the inside. Bratface spent that week hanging out with her Nannie (Himself's mum was here for the week, coincidentally) and then spent the next two weeks getting re-accustomed to rules and the world not always revolving around herself. She didn't appreciate the lesson. Himself turned 33 this week. We didn't do presents for him, the man wants for nothing save sleep (and short of resorting to Benadryl, Madam isn't helping with matters), so we made him a cake. I...