murat
I was thinking yesterday about all the many, many weekends I’ve written about on my blog over the years, and how they are mostly a visual celebration of ordinary, domestic life. Nothing outrageously exciting ever happens on my weekends, they are made up of mundane routines, gentle chores and slow living, and I am honestly full of gratitude for the uncomplicated ease of them. I was saying to a friend the other day that I think living a slow, contented and ever so slightly boring life is very underrated in terms of the happiness it delivers.
When the Little People were young, my weekends looked and felt very different. All three of them were seriously early risers (especially at this time of year when it’s light in the mornings) and it was such a full-on, rather cray-cray time in my life parenting three Littles. I remember wondering what life might feel like in the future when I could wake up before them and spend my days doing pretty much what I wanted to do while they did their own thing, I could hardly imagine the total luxury of it back then. Fast forward to now, and I’m living and loving my once longed for quiet morning starts, and fully enjoying my leisurely weekend days where I have plenty of time to relax and do things that make me happy.
It’s a funny thing looking back to those days (and I do often read back through my own Attic24 archives to help me remember), because I really did love parenting through the toddler and young school ages….and yet….I am SO HAPPY that I’m beyond it all haha!! Of course I do still have my three offspring at home so I’m still parenting, but at ages 20, 19 and 13 it’s a totally different kind of gig these days.
Anyhooo….where was all this leading, I really don’t know…..I hadn’t meant to wander off down memory lane!
I was at Coopers café on Friday morning which isn’t strictly the weekend but often times those hours at the tail end of the school week do have a delightfully weekendish feel. I had a lovely time chatting to my friends while knitting up some stripy rows, eating toasted crumpets and slurping a frothy cappuccino. I cast on these “frost” socks at the start of March and they are great to have on the go for when I’m at that faffy, unsociable stage with my crochet project.
We went out for a walk in the woods on Sunday morning, notable because a) I spotted the first bluebells in flower and b) we had both Little B and Little Lady walking with us. I’ve worked out that I can encourage them to walk with us on a Sunday morning if it’s not too early (10.30am is the sweet spot) and if we detour via their favourite coffee chain on the way. The lure of a Sunday morning coffee and a pastry works wonders, I wonder where they get these ideas from (??!)
The woodland is absolutely bursting with greenery and lushness right now….
….fresh green leafage everywhere you look.
Spotting these teeny tiny fluffy ducklings dancing along in the reflections made me quite weak at the knees, the cuteness was almost too much.
It takes about ten minutes to walk from the coffee shop on the main high street to the woodland, isn’t that something? Such a lovely combination of pleasures to enjoy on a sun dappled Sunday morning.
It’s three in the afternoon on Sunday now, and things are happening out on our street. For once, the weather got the memo and there is blue sky up above, yay! Bunting is flapping in the breeze, and down below there are tables all set with cloths and napkins ready to be piled with all manor of sandwiches, cakes, fruit platters and savoury snacks.
I didn’t take in any of the Kings Coronation on Saturday as I was busy doing other things, but on Sunday it was a lovely chance for our little terraced community to come out and celebrate. I live on such a friendly street where we know most of our neighbours up and down on both sides. There are thirty houses in total, and being terraced I think it’s safe to say that we have no choice but to be close knit! It makes for a very jovial atmosphere when the children are all out to play (we had a permit to close the street so there were no cars for a few days) and everyone brings chairs and benches and gets down to the happy business of chit-chatting and having fun.
I snapped the above photo on my phone and it did make me laugh just now when I uploaded it – a jug of Pimms next to a half empty bottle of bubble mixture, kind of sums up the afternoon rather nicely! The kids varied in age from small toddlers up to teenagers, and the activities included bubbles and chalks (so nostalgic), a little bit of football, some jump rope skipping (huge fun, nearly wet myself laughing when the adults got involved after a whole lot of Pimms had gone down), and later s’mores on the barbecue, music and dancing well into the dark of the night.
As a result of the enormous quantity of Pimms which ended up in my system, Monday was spent mostly horizontal in a recovery position. It was worth it though, such a happy and memorable day.
I hope you had a good weekend, whether it was mundane or something exciting, do tell me what you got up to? I’d love to hear..
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