At work, rest and play...

To the art of working well a civilised race would add the art of playing well.

George Santayana

Five minute lovely list

Right now I'm enjoying:

~ Taking 5 minutes...

~ Early cherries from Turkey - I love, love, love cherries and they have such a short season. I am at risk of over-indulging.

~ Intermittent sunshine. I wouldn't exactly call it Summer but there have been glimpses.

~ Four wheels on suitcases. Have I mentioned this? Changed my travelling life, bearing in mind that when I'm not on planes I'm mostly on public transport and always my own porter. Seriously, who would have thought those two extra wheels would make such a difference?! Revolutionary!

~ Six days in a row working from home to look forward to. Sleeping in my own bed... what a pleasure.

♥

Five minute lovely list

This week I've been:

~ Enjoying the fact that the everyday tools of my trade now include as much paper and handwritten ink as technology.

~ Loving my pretty new phone case - like carrying a little quilt of colour in my pocket!

~ Noticing just the slightest shift in daylight hours... not out of the long darkness by a good distance yet but moving in that direction. Oh, and the snow's gone. Thank goodness because, much as I love it to look at, it was causing havoc with getting around.

~ Thankful for the support of people who, with many a kind word and deed, have helped me deal with some of the less pleasant aspects of being self-employed and resident in a foreign country. 

~ Relishing the paint! The juicy acrylic colours, the feeling of it on my fingers and under a brush, and the sheer escape of losing myself in the process for a few hours... BLISS.

♡

Five minute lovely list

~ Time to write - lists, musings, letters, thank you notes, blog posts. It's felt lacking recently. I've missed it.

~ Mobile phone Apps - oh my goodness, these little wonders really do make life (especially when on the road) easier and more fun. Some of my favourites of the moment are: Passbook (electronic tickets, boarding passes etc.), TripAdvisor and TripAdvisor City Guide (access to good travel info and recommendations on the move), Pixlromatic+ (fun for photographs), Genius Scan (enhances and creates pdf documents out of anything you photograph - especially useful for receipts, recipes and other text records you might like to make), SimpleMind+ (an uncomplicated but great little mind-mapping tool - I love it for quickly capturing ideas), Audible (Audiobooks. Something I've apparently never outgrown is the pleasure of having someone read to me. In the absence of a real someone to do this, audible brings me people like Stephen Fry, Richard Attenborough and a host of lovely narrators to do so. Love it!). If you have any App faves you'd like to share, please do... I'd love to try them out.

~ The White Company candles - delicious fragrances, beautiful, simple but luxurious packaging and very clean and long-burning. I have them at home and take a little one with me when I travel - it's like a sensory anchor. They make me very happy and there's one for every mood. My favourites are Seychelles, Wild Mint and Pine Cone but there really isn't a bad one.

~ Creative stash. More specifically... using it. In my mission to declutter and lighten my world of all the stuff that weighs me down, as well as to deliberately carve out more creative playtime, I've been sorting through my stash and am planning to have great fun using it up. I probably have enough to keep me going until about 2025!

~ Kindness - when it's aimed at me, it always takes me by surprise and manages to undo me.

Five minute lovely list

~ late-blooming puffs of peony that make me smile with their voluptuousness. I actually took this picture before I went to South Africa in July but as I was going through my photographs this weekend, I enjoyed them all over again and that made me thankful for living in an age when I can afford to just take a digital snap of my weekly flowers.

~ a moment of perfect understanding; a look and a smile shared with a stranger as we passed on the tow path. I love it when this happens, don't you? No words necessary.

~ chocolate refrigerator squares. I know this is something that even a complete bungler in the kitchen  like me should be able to make but why would I when Marks & Spencer make such a perfect version? Truly melt-in-the-mouth-rich-but-light-yumminess.

~ some lovely feedback from a colleague, someone who I've recently had reason to work with more closely than before. It reminded me that what we do can make a positive difference and when we work together, towards a common end, even more so.

~ Amazon. If as a child I'd known that I might live in a world where the biggest book shop in the world was literally at my fingertips, I don't think I could have dreamed of anything better. I still love to go in to a proper bookshop and browse the stacks, breathe in the air full of all that smell of new print on paper*, but oh how absolutely thrilled I am to press a few buttons and as if by magic have the book bundle appear at my door. It delights me every time.

*I'm one of those people who hopes as long as we can continue to produce sustainable forests, we never fully move away from having books in paper form. Nothing beats the smell and heft of a book in the hand for pleasure. However, because of all the travelling I do and how quickly I read, I have been considering buying an e-reader like a Kindle, so that I can economically (in terms of size, cost and convenience) carry a small library with me. Does anyone have any thoughts to share about this? Have you used one? Would you recommend it? Or not?

Five minute lovely list

~ blue sky. And are those the beginnings of leaf shoots I see? I thought I might be imagining that Spring is late arriving and whinging unjustifiably about eternal Winters but last year at this time, this tree looked like this. Magnificent. I feel vindicated. And glad to see she's about to do her beautiful thing. At last.

~ short working weeks. The shorter the better.

~ pizza. Proper Italian pizza. The Italians have given the world many, many wonderful things but if all they'd contributed was pizza I still think we should be thanking them. Shared with friends and a lovely bottle of red, it becomes a feast.

~ packing. Okay, not everyone's idea of lovely and on another day, probably not mine. I'm actually really looking forward to it this weekend though. Weird, I know. But it's spring cleaning and decluttering and an opportunity to savour the things I love and want to keep all in one. Only two weeks to go now 'til the move.

~ colour palette generator. I've been playing with inspiration mosaics for my new decor and then thought, I wonder how this would translate in that palette generator thingy? Oh dear. I am addicted. So far my palettes of choice for the apartment include delicious colours like wasabi, treehouse, cashmere, viking, peacock, toast, turtle, spice and claret. I think that generator knows more about me than it should!

What's on your lovely list this week? Whatever it is, I wish you a very, very lovely Friday!
♥

Five minute lovely list

At an everyday level I would reckon myself more than fortunate.

Peter Garrett

(1953)

~ It's half way through the week. That's good 'cause I'm that bit closer to my leave, not so good 'cause still no sign of the necessary paper. Focussing on the good, good, good.

~ Turkish Apple Tea - a very thoughtful gift brought back from Istanbul for me by a colleague. Not actually tea but a lovely refreshing, slightly tart apple-flavoured drink - delish! He also brought me two of my favourite edible treats - fresh Pistachio Turkish Delight and rich, nutty, honey-soaked Baklava. Mmmm... knows me too well I fear.

~ This little bird is preparing to move to a new nest in the next month or so - date to be confirmed soon. Very exciting and long overdue. A space all to myself. Every day. I also can't wait to collect and unpack my goodies from storage, including my pretty Turkish tea glasses.

~ Browsing back through old notebooks and reflecting on the journeys they represent - looking at new notebooks waiting to be filled...

~ Being reminded by browsing on Flickr why I need to play with my camera indoors more. I haven't taken a single photograph this week but I'm inspired by the everyday loveliness above to take some shots later.

♥

Five minute lovely list

~ Soft purple roses that smell as pretty as they look - flowers really do brighten up even the dullest Winter's day, don't they?

~ Sharing Bajan mojitos - new to me - tapas, some tears and lots of laughs with a friend - perfect healing end to a hard week.

~ Nutella on toasted bagels with English breakfast tea, made strong and milky - a delicious morning-after breakfast.

~ A good post day - real and virtual mailbox bursting with a week's worth of thoughtful treasures and kind thoughts from near and far.

~ Work's on the agenda this weekend but I've promised myself I'll call a halt after dark - reading, writing, catching up time then to look forward to - trying hard to maintain that illusive balance...

What's on your lovely list this weekend?

♥