Wonderful Wednesday 46

Hello and happy Wednesday to you. How have you been?! We begin today's broadcast with the sad news that unfortunately, I'm not able to put yoga on my list for the third week in a row because I hurt my back over the weekend - and not even in a triumphant yoga-based injury. I've actually got to the stage in my life when cold weather can make me pull a muscle :) Thank goodness for hot water bottles and cosy beds, and a sprinkling of the other highlights set out below...

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♥ Moments of kindness… With everything going on in the world at the moment, it can be so easy to despair of humanity and living in a city, particularly one as busy as London, it seems like rudeness, rushing and busyness just takes precedence. This is why looking for the good in a week makes such a difference because when you do stop and look, there are always snippets of happiness to be found.

My husband and I were in Norfolk at the weekend visiting his mum for her birthday. We had tickets booked for the 8pm train out of London on Friday and had treated ourselves to seats in first class because we’d booked the tickets a little way in advance. The guard stopped to chat to us after checking our tickets when a lady walked up to him looking very distressed - she had thought it was a train to Romford, not one making its merry way to Norwich. You hear such dreadful stories about those moments and being forced to pay expensive penalty fares on top of the fact that you’re already heading in the wrong direction, which adds an age to your journey. This man could not have been nicer to her – he helped her plan the route she needed to take to get her to her destination as quickly as possible from one of the timetabled stops and told her that she could stay sitting in first class until she got off the train. There was an old man sitting at a table-seat across the aisle from her and he insisted on fetching her a cup of tea from the buffet car too as she looked so upset. They were probably wondering why there was an eejit grinning in their general direction from a few rows back but still, it made me feel happy to see and I’m sure made a stressful situation infinitely better.

Back pain aside, the weekend was wonderful and it was lovely to escape London for a few days. A particular highlight was our Saturday morning brunch at Frank's Bar in Norwich - a cafe/bar on one of Norwich's cute little lanes. The food is always amazing and we stayed there for a few hours nursing hot drinks to begin with, ordering extra to give us an excuse to stay longer. I can wholeheartedly recommend the spicy edges with chipotle mayo, particularly on a chilly day!

♥ Birdwatching… I know I’ve mentioned my mother in law’s gorgeous garden on previous Wonderful Wednesdays. It’s not a riot of colour in January, unsurprisingly, as everything is cut back ready for spring, although there are daffodils beginning to pop up and snowdrops adding little glimmering patches of white if you look hard enough. But my mother in law has feeders full of seeds and nuts hung around the garden for the birds all year round and there’s something so calming about sitting beside the window with a steaming mug of tea, just watching them. There were blackbirds, robins, wood pigeons and bluetits, but the highlight of all highlights – a beautiful male pheasant strutting around the garden with his harem of wives, three of them!

♥ Radio silence… The Internet wasn’t working all weekend while we were away and, in deepest darkest Norfolk, there was no phone signal either (apart from when we popped into Norwich for a few hours on the Saturday). It was the oddest feeling and made me really notice how often I pick up my phone to mindlessly browse the Internet – Instagram usually! I don’t think I’d like it for a lengthy period of time but it made me focus more on whatever else I was doing at the time – watching a movie, reading a book or slowly working my way through my mother in law’s pile of Country Living magazines (bliss!)

Saturday morning brunch

♥ Pizza... Totally shamelessly including this because I'm munching it on Tuesday evening as I write this post. It's an excellent example of the gluten free genre (thank you Schar!) made slightly more exciting by the addition of olives, chillis and extra cheese. In fact, it was so delicious that I'm slightly jealous of past-me as I hit 'post' on Wednesday morning - cornflakes just aren't the same.

Short and sweet this week, and I'll be away with friends next week - they're arriving on Friday and I can't wait!

♥ Do let me know what's made your week a little rosier by leaving me a comment below or dropping me a tweet (I'm @happygoluckycat) or better yet, why not join the fabulous bunch of #WonderfulWednesday bloggers? Pop over to their blogs for a dose of mid-week happiness - Sally, Michelle, Helen, Kate, Jo, Sam, Kerri, Laura, Sarah, Peta, El, Laura, Mimmi, Martina, Lynsey, Katie and Em (I think that's everyone - shout at me if you're not on the list!) - and then join me in counting down the days until the weekend. It's in sight! ♥