May has been a month of seeing new places — two work trips for me and two for Scott. I love travelling but you can’t beat coming home to your own bed after being away. Or maybe it’s a side effect of being a homebody who likes to travel. It’s a bit of a contradiction.
Eating
- Winter Vegetable Avial (coconut and vegetable curry)
- Courgette and mozzarella bake
- Chocolate sweet potato brownies made by a friend
- Pasties de Nata
- Some seriously good gelato in Lisbon and Berlin. I’m not keen on the idea of having a kitchen full of electric gadgets but I’m considering buying an ice cream maker.
Reading
One Man’s Wilderness, An Alaskan Odyssey — which contains excerpts from journals written by Richard Proenneke. He built a life in the Alaskan wilderness at age fifty two and lived there for nearly thirty years. Amazing man, he’s one of my heroes! If you’re interested, there is also a short documentary about his life called Alone in the Wilderness.
Growing
This coral sunset peony!! If you’ve followed this blog for a while you might remember I waited two long years for one flower. This is the third year and we have six! Well worth the wait I think.
After much umming and aahhing, we decided to give up our allotment plot. We never really got back on top of things after last year and we’re now both travelling quite a bit for work. Neither of us want to keep feeling guilty about not spending enough time there so we called it a day. I’ll miss all the fresh veggies but our back garden is now home to blueberries, apples, blackberries, beans, herbs and peas. All the good stuff.
Exploring
Lisbon
Lisbon had everything — sandy beaches, leafy streets, painted tiles, custard tarts, a castle, amazing seafood and a kind old lady. I took SO many photos of tiles — I over photograph something on every trip and curse myself when it comes to sorting through them all! Orange trees in Spain, moss in Iceland, flowers against wooden buildings in Norway… you get the idea.
Berlin
Berlin was brilliant but our journey there, not to much. We travelled out when British Airways had total system failure so most of our day was spent in the airport waiting for news. Thankfully we made it out of there despite all the cancellations! Berlin had a great vibe and we could see ourselves living somewhere like this. Definitely somewhere I want to go back to, there is so much more to see.
Feeling
A little weighed down by life; all the decisions to make and things to do. I’ve started writing about it a few times but with everything going on in the world I feel like I have no right to feel out of sorts. I should feel happy to be alive and healthy with a home, food in my fridge and nice people in my life.
Celebrating
Ending on the best thing of all. Our one year wedding anniversary — already! Family sent us a bottle of bubbly the weekend before, which was the perfect excuse to start celebrating early.
We also went back to the wedding venue for a meal on our actual anniversary date. They gave us the entire meal on the house. So kind!
And that’s all for May!
“Peony .. waited two long years for one flower”
That’s reassuring! Are they slow-growing in general? We planted our “twig” about 18 months ago and we’re only just starting to get some leaves. It seems to be growing very slowly…
Yes, I think it’s normal for peonies to be slow to flower. Ours looked like a gangly sweet potato when I planted it but thankfully it has grown into something that looks a lot nicer!
Coral Sunset is by far my favorite peony variety. Wonderful choice!
And, yes, there are a lot of terrible things happening around the world, but personally I think it’s okay to acknowledge that you have concerns about what’s happening in your life and simultaneously acknowledge that you have privileges that others may not. I know what you mean, though; I often have the same dilemma. Hope you find some peace soon.
I think Coral Sunset are the best too. They fade nicely from coral to pastel pink to pale yellow. I should forget everything else that is going on at the moment and focus on the peonies!
Congrats on your first year wedding anniversary! 🙂 That Peony is such a beautiful colour, also the tiles in Lisbon look gorgeous (loved following along on insta too, though I have been awful at commenting on there!) I feel that way sometimes, if I am having a down day or feeling a bit off, I feel guilty because I am so lucky, but I guess it is just about acknowledging that and knowing that not every day can be a good day and that it is all relative. Wishing you a happy june 🙂
Thank you Ellie, I don’t know where this first year has gone! I wasn’t sure if I was sharing too many tile photos on Instagram but I’m glad to hear you didn’t get bored of them. Plenty more where that came from haha!
Some wonderful travel, I would love to visit both Lisbon and Berlin. I completely get the feeling of slightly weighed down by life and that feeling that it is small in the grand scheme of things and I keep focusing on the positives. The bigger things are sometimes overwhelming, add to that the everyday struggles and the small things do feel bigger.
I hope giving up the allotment gives you a little more time to focus on the things that make you happy.
Yes, focusing on the positives is important. I think I’ll feel better once I’ve made some time to work on some of my projects and forget about everything else for a while. Definitely add Lisbon and Berlin to your travel list, there is plenty of exploring to be done in both. x