small pleasures

 

 

When I was about 6 or 7 and at school, we each had an exercise book in which we wrote our news for the week.

 

The book was a source of amusement and some embarrassment to my mum when she read it on  parents' evening, for with the straightforward truthfulness of a small child, I gave away lots of secrets.

 

One entry read

 'Mummy has bought me some new navy blue knickers. She is going to use the old ones as dusters'

 

And another one, written just after a Christmas holiday, stated rather bluntly

 

'I had a bag of marbles for Christmas'

 

The point of the latter being that, of all my presents, it was a small bag of marbles that had captured my imagination.

 

I had a similar experience last weekend when, courtesy of mr digandweed's work, we enjoyed a fab all expenses paid trip to London, staying in a wonderful hotel, seeing all the sights and going to a show, but it was the seemingly tiny details that stuck with me and gave me most pleasure.

Here are my London weekend highlights:

A sea of pink tables and chairs outside Tate Modern against a background of slender silver birch trees.

 

Finding little oasis of green in a huge bustling city.
London seems to have lots of these peaceful green hideaways. It would be lovely to spend a weekend finding and exploring more of them.

The plaque in this one is self explanatory and you can read more about it here.

 

 

 It was a wonderful place to sit and rest after walking for ages.

I loved the contrast of the big banana leaf against the modern building.

 

The final highlight was our beautiful breakfast, eaten in the hotel dining room overlooking the Thames.

The breakfast buffet was a work of art!

Rows of kilner jars lined up full of delicious goodness:

beautiful amber apricots

jewel-like blackcurrants and cranberries

crunchy seeds and dried fruit

ebony coloured prunes

all to be enjoyed atop bowls of creamy yoghurt.

Followed by baskets of croissants, crusty sourdough bread and heaps of coffee.

Heaven!

 

Returning home, I had to have a go myself at re-creating some of the magic!

 

 

I now have jars of soaked apricots and mixed seeds and berries to enjoy with my morning yoghurt.