Life is such a gift! It is full of highs and lows, but in the day to day it is often the little things that keep us smiling. That is what my ‘Small Things’ posts are all about – creating lists of the cheery bits and pieces that have made my life good in the last week. The aim is not to showcase a mock ‘perfect life’, but to share some joys, ideas and experiences that hopefully others will enjoy reading about. It is so easy to be negative, so these lists also remind me to be thankful and positive.

So, here are last week’s small things – this time in the form of a verb list! I’ve been:

*Buying a memory foam mattress! We just got a really cheap one, as a joint birthday present for the both of us, but it is AMAZING! Like sleeping on a marshmallow 🙂

*Eating fajitas, Maltesers Easter bunnies and houmous on toast! By the way, both Maltesers and Dairy Milk are now Fair Trade, so are great choices for chocaholics like me.

*Reading some of Jo Goddard’s posts on Cup of Jo. Here are a few I particularly enjoyed: Encouragement, Do You Worry too Much?, The Art of Presence , Funny Valentine’s Cards and Five Best Graphic Novels, which inspired me to try the genre.

*Watching RED 2 – I love the RED films! Both films follow a group of retired agents, played by big names like Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren, who, to cut a long story short, end up being chased by everyone. Fairly central to the plot of both films, is Willis’s character’s relationship with ditsy but tough Sarah, played by Mary-Louise Parker. They’re cheesy films, but have a great balance of humour and action.

*Visiting Denham Country Park in the rain. It’s not as good in the rain as in the summer (!) but the fresh air felt great, and the canal boats and this rather lonely looking bunting brought colour to the grey sky. If you haven’t been there, it’s a beautiful place to walk, on the edge of the Grand Union canal, with a river and fields and plenty of bird life. I’ve included a couple of pictures we took there one summer – not the best photography, but in one of them we somehow managed to capture both a heron and a kingfisher in the same shot!

I’ve also been playing with our guinea pigs this week, who haven’t had nearly enough attention since we got Jamie (the dog)!

I hope you’ve all had good weeks too!