By Friday evening, I was wired. I’d not had a bad week – in fact, a lot of it had been really good – but I was just buzzing with it all. The last few nights I’d been waking about 3am, or getting up at 5.30 to start work because I just couldn’t stop thinking about all the exciting stuff that needed doing. I’ve learned from previous experience that this is a sign I need to take time out before work starts to tip from being fun to being stressful, so was adamant that I was going to close the laptop Friday night and not open it again till Monday.
Apart from a quick check of emails (5 mins only) at the start of the day, I’ve stuck to that resolution, and boy do I feel better for it. Today we went for a five mile walk by the sea front mid morning and took sandwiches for a picnic – something I’m not sure we’ve ever done from home. It was surprisingly quiet away from the beach and was so relaxing to walk in the sun, listen to the birds, look at the flowers and just chill.
There seemed to be so many burnet moths about today and they’re quite happy to pose for photos, unlike butterflies which never stay still for a minute.
The flowers on the dunes are gradually tipping over into high summer – swathes of geraniums today…
…while the first scabious and centaury were just coming out.
We ate our cheese butties on a hill overlooking the dunes and just drank in the wonderful weather and families of goldfinches flying past (think the correct name is a ‘charm’ of goldfinches, which seems perfect for this lovely bird).
After an afternoon in the garden flitting from sun to shade whenever we were in danger of overheating, finished off the day by trying a new recipe – Pea, Mint and Halloumi fritters from Perfect Host by Felicity Cloake. It was meant to be a brunch recipe for 6 – so of course I made the full amount for the 2 of us (some of the ingredients were hard to scale down – that’s my excuse). Really lovely and quite easy, although I did use an awful lot of bowls for the various stages.
I have to say the bright pea green cakes matched our patio table perfectly! Sunshine+flowers+nature+good food = one chilled person, ready for whatever next week brings 🙂