52 Weeks of Happy 13/52

I'm still not feeling very well so this will be a quick post. I did feel better midweek but felt worse again by Friday. I've only got three happy things again this week.

1. Extra hour. I'm looking forward to the longer days and lighter evenings.

Photo source

2. Cut grass. The grass was cut for the first time this year, yesterday. I love the smell of freshly cut grass!

3. Warm weekend. It's been a lovely warm weekend, so far. I did manage to spend about 15 minutes outside yesterday. If I felt better, I would have sat outside for a while.

I hope you've managed to find happy things, this week.

52 Weeks of Happy 12/52

I've had mild flu since last Thursday so I haven't felt like doing anything. I've been resting all week but I'm still not feeling great, although better than I was. As a result of this I've only got three happy things from last week.

1. Haircut. I've had my hair cut even shorter now! It's the style I've wanted for a while but didn't feel brave enough to go for it, until now. I took this photo of Helen George to the hairdresser.

2. New speaker. I bought this X-Mini 2 speaker from Tesco for £15 to plug into my phone/iPod/iPad. The sound is brilliant, it goes really loud and the bass is good too. I got it mainly for when I'm cooking/in the kitchen.

3. #nomakeupselfie. This is something that is going around the social media sites, Facebook, Twitter etc. The idea is to post a photo of yourself without make up and if you can, donate £3 to Cancer Research. I rarely wear make up but still did it and as of yesterday it has raised £8 million!

52 Weeks of Happy 11/52

1. Baby news. Not me! My friend phoned me on Tuesday to say his wife is expecting their first baby, in September. I haven't seen them for a while as my friend works a lot but we'll hopefully meet up soon.

2. Cake. I made the chocolate crunch cake from this post. It tasted just the same as I remember but it didn't set properly, I did have to change the quantities and someone said I may have used too much condensed milk. I'm going to try again with a slightly different recipe.

3. Ladybirds. I saw four, seven spot ladybirds in the garden on Thursday, I think that is as many as I saw in the garden all of last year! I hope this is a good sign and the ladybird population will thrive this year.

4. Sunset. There was a beautiful sunset on Saturday evening as I drove home from taking my mum out. I did something I've never done before, I pulled over twice to take photos and I did feel a bit conspicuous! I only had my phone so the photos weren't close up and they don't really show the colours properly. It was lovely, streaked with purple, orange and red. 

52 Weeks of Happy 10/52

My happy things from last week (a little late!).

1. Glorious Sunday! Not surprisingly my 1st happy is the warm, sunny day we had on Sunday. You can see my post here.

2. Signs of spring. In the last week or so, I've seen a small tortoiseshell butterfly, comma butterfly, ladybirds, bees, daffodils, buds on the brink of flowering and blossom.

3. Volunteering. I used to volunteer at a local toddler group when it first started in January 2012 and I finished in December 2012 to concentrate on finding work. I've decided to return to volunteer there and started last week, being unemployed I don't always get out much so this is a nice way to have some social time.

4. Maternity volunteers. I've been trying to get some sort of maternity experience for a while now and have just found a fairly local hospital is now looking for maternity volunteers. Although, they have said the process to becoming a volunteer can take a while due to the high number of applications, I'm hopefully on the way to gaining some experience.

Photo source

Glorious Sunday!

What beautiful weather we had in the South today! The warmest day of the year so far, I think we got to 18°c. It was so nice to feel the warm sun on my skin (I was in short sleeves!) and to have the windows open so a breeze flowed through the house. I did three loads of washing and got it all dried on the line too.

I spent about an hour and a half in the garden planting and just watching the wildlife enjoying the weather too. I planted my mini daffodils and some snowdrops in the rockery, to hopefully enjoy next year.

All of the time I was outside there was a Comma butterfly flitting to and from the heather. I took eight photos but only a couple were any good!

Comma butterfly

This could be a dead leaf in the heather!

There were a couple of bees too, a Red-tailed bumblebee and one with a white bottom. I also saw a yellow coloured butterfly and two butterflies dancing around together but I couldn't see what they were. 

Red bottom!

I spent 10 minutes standing still, by the washing line pole, waiting for a robin to feel brave enough to come to the feeders so I could get a photo. The robin teased me, flying from the tree, to the fence, onto the grass but never to the feeders. Just standing, listening I heard the sound of people chattering, a lawn mower starting up, a motorbike whizzing up the hill, a car alarm going off all sounds I wouldn't necessarily have acknowledged if I hadn't been still. Sometimes our lives are so busy and on the go, we forget to stop and listen and take things in. 

A few more photos from the garden today. Blossom in my neighbour's garden.

Daffodil buds.

A lone seven spot ladybird.

My washing blowing in the wind.

Spring is on the way and I can't wait! I hope you've all had a glorious Sunday too!

Something for the weekend

I've been slack with these 'Something for the weekend' posts, I haven't done one since October!

This weekend I'm looking forward to:

• 1st Birthday Party - I'm helping out at this party tomorrow, I'm sure I'll be worn out afterwards!
• 30th Birthday meal - It's my sister's birthday tomorrow and we are going out for dinner, there will be about 14 of us.
• 6 Nations Rugby - I'm looking forward to watching England play on Sunday.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend too!

P.S. I made this collage on the PicMonkey website, there are lots of things to play around with.

52 Weeks of Happy 9/52

I hope you've all had a good week. This week has gone really quickly and I don't have photos for all of my happy things. 

I think I have another infection around my wisdom tooth but it's no where near as bad as last time. I will be going back to the dentist tomorrow to get some more antibiotics and I'm due to have it out on 21st March so I'm really hoping it will go ahead.

 My happy things this week:

1. Crocheting. I've managed to do a bit of my blanket this week, I haven't done any for ages! I have problems with my wrists so I can't always crochet as it's painful. 

2. Robin's song. The robins have been singing very fluty tunes this week, even some that I haven't heard before and there are robins in the garden daily.

3. Cake recipe. I knew I had this recipe but had forgotten about it, if that makes sense?! I'm not sure if this is my nan's or grampy's writing but my nan used to make this cake and I loved it. Although, I remember having it with digestive biscuits and cherries. I may have to make it soon!

4. Lighter evenings. I've looked out of the window a few times this week when it has been light, thinking it was about 4.30pm but it was actually about 5.30pm. I love the longer days!