T H E P E R F E C T S A T U R D A Y .
Our Saturday began the same way as ever other day- with a 6am wake up call from the little pup downstairs. She’s as regular as clockwork, always ready at 6am on the dot with a whine and a scratch at the gate to let us know she’d like to be let outside and then to have her breakfast, please.
Jason and I had sat out around the fire pit until almost 11pm the previous night, and so waking up so early on a weekend morning felt pretty tough going. Good practise though, I guess…
We always take it in turns to do the early shift, and Saturday was my day to be up with the birds. The morning was hazy but warm already, and I opened the curtains in the living room to find the bunch of peonies I’d bought a couple of days previously in full, beautiful bloom.
There’s no flower that makes me happier than the peony. They’re always the most spectacular, don’t you think?
After a leisurely breakfast, and an even more leisurely walk with the dogs, our first order of the day was to visit the garden centre to pick up some new greenery for our little garden.
I feel like I’ve talked a dozen times before about how much I wish I was naturally green-fingered (and how sadly UN-green fingered I actually am!), but since I know that I’ll never get better at keeping our garden looking ship-shape if I don’t try at all, try I will!
We bought a few new plants to fill up the beds- purple and white dahlias that I would just love to grow tall and flower every year without fail, a huge rosemary plant to sit potted on the deck, a lovely ornate fuchsia, and some strawberry plants to put in place of the herbs that didn’t make it through the winter in our wall planters.
Oh, and a hanging vine tomato plant too!
I’m thinking that maybe the fact it’s hanging, as opposed to on the ground, will help to keep pests like slugs and snails away…though perhaps that’s just wishful thinking?
But still, we’ve dutifully given all the new plants a good feed with Baby Bio (which we bought purely because I remember using it with my Grandma as a child, to feed the tomatoes we grew in a gro-bag on our patio), and now we’re keeping our fingers crossed that they all flourish!
And speaking of growing, this bump of mine seems to have suddenly popped!
About time too, given that I’m now only week away from being six months pregnant. Can you even believe that? I’m starting to worry about stupid things, like that we haven’t chosen curtains for the nursery yet, and how many layers to dress the baby in at night. I need to get a grip…
This dress was a treat from my lovely Mum around Easter time, and I’ve been saving it since then to wear when A- the weather finally got warm (and now it has- hurrah!), and B- for when I could actually fill the belly part with bump!
And it turns out that maternity clothes, funnily enough, actually highlight your bump rather than it just looking kind of awkward when you wear your regular stuff. Who knew? ;)
We had family coming over later that day for a barbecue, and so my afternoon was spent tinkering in the kitchen.
Salads were prepared (my favourite of all- caprese- was made with those fist-sized tomatoes in the photos above), chicken was marinated, and the sweetest pineapple I ever had the pleasure of tasting was sliced up and laid out ready to become the basis of a tropical fruit salad.
^^ Sweet pineapple, ripe mango, tart passionfruit, and fresh (homegrown!) mint. The best. ^^
The evening become our second in a row spent sitting around the fire until late, toasting marshmallows and talking as the night drew in.
We’re really trying to make the most of these calm, peaceful months, both by spending as much time as we can savouring all the free time we have right now, but also by trying to fit in as much as possible whilst we only have ourselves to think of!
I think it’s the fact that we’re on something of a countdown right now that’s making everything feel that bit more heightened. I’m happier, more emotional, more ‘in the moment’, more sensitive, more appreciative, just more…more!
It feels so lovely to just soak in weekends like this, all whilst wondering and dreaming about how wonderfully different our lives will be in a year’s time.
And I think that that, combined with the flowers and the sunshine and the quality time spent with some of my favourite people, and all that delicious food and the smell of woodsmoke in my hair, is what made this particular weekend such a perfect one.
