Good Day Sunshine!

When life is feeling a little flat, and you are in need of something colourful to lift your mood, yellow is the colour to do it, I’d say. Flowers and sunshine. The freshest pineapple and mango fruit salad.  The impossible cuteness of a fluffy duckling.  The beyond comical expression on a tiny yellow spotted boxfish?

What more can I say? Yellow is just a happy colour.  Or perhaps I am just in a happy mood, having just done a very yellow post previous to this one?  If colour can lead to infectious happiness, I am very happy with that!

The flowers (and the sunshine!) are long gone, as these are snaps from a glorious English summer, but I find them uplifting nonetheless.

And then of course the lyrical mastery of The Beatles springs to mind.  The jolly, happy sing-a-long that is unavoidable with ‘Yellow Submarine’, naturally!  But even better than that, ‘Good Day Sunshine’.  It is my ultimate feel good song, and a welcome soundtrack to my Friday evening. Colourful in essence, even if not name:

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

I need to laugh, and when the sun is out
I’ve got something I can laugh about
I feel good, in a special way
I’m in love and it’s a sunny day

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

We take a walk, the sun is shining down
Burns my feet as they touch the ground

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

Then we lie beneath a shady tree
I love her and she’s loving me
She feels good, she know she’s looking fine
I’m so proud to know that she is mine

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine
Good day sunshine

Good day sunshine
(Good day sunshine)
Good day sunshine
(Good day sunshine).

(Good Day Sunshine, Revolver album, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney).

I’ll leave you with those happy, colourful, sunshiny thoughts.  HAPPY FRIDAY!

The finish line and a little bit of cat therapy.

Some weeks just seem to be particularly tough, although you can’t quite put your finger on what specifically is at the root of the problem.  It’s been one of those weeks.  But I’ve made it across the finish line – the weekend is here! A couple of days of family time and the chance to refresh and recharge will smooth everything out I’m sure.

It’s Friday night, I’m about to go and pour myself a generous glass of Shiraz, pop the dinner in the oven and put some music on.  Then I am going to put my feet up, chat with my husband without constant focus on our gorgeous girl and her toddler demands, and cuddle a cat.  These things make me happy.  They belong together; a formula for happiness.

If you are not a cat (or animal) lover, then you may not get it.  But for me cuddling a purring cat is almost therapeutic.  Now, time to go choose that album and get the evening started!  Happy weekend everybody!

Razzy and Rosie – siblings who belong not only in our family, but to each other. They are very cuddly!

‘The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats…’

(Albert Schweitzer).

Autumn bounty meets pumpkin patch party time!

Three weeks today my little girl will be getting her first taste of Halloween at a children’s Halloween party organised by a friend.  It is impossible to make a toddler look scary, so I am going for adorable instead, and I have started making a little tutu and pumpkin appliquéd outfit for her. I am no master crafter, so I’m hoping that the inevitable imperfections in the final product will be overlooked whilst people coo at the general cuteness.  That’s the plan! Fingers crossed!

Halloween isn’t something I ever marked before I came out here.  I know it is a big thing in America, but it isn’t a particularly British celebration.  Although it’s popularity is growing as it becomes ever more commercialised.  All that aside, the party will be an interesting experience for the children, and they get the chance to dress up and play together, whilst the parents socialise after a long week.  I’m happy with that, just as long as I don’t have to go down the fancy dress route as well!

For Ailsa’s ‘bountiful‘ travel theme this week, pumpkins were obviously already on my mind given that I’m currently up to my eyes in green and orange tulle netting and felt!  So here is a little English pumpkin bounty, fresh from the Warwickshire fields and on sale at a farm shop last autumn. Don’t they look amazing?  I’m always stunned by the variety.  I had to stop myself from buying one in every shape and colour so that I could taste test them all!  Such beautiful bounty.