• The awfully nice men who helped me drag my bike, my pannier bags and myself underneath an enormous fallen tree that was blocking the whole of the cycle path on my way to work yesterday morning.  This was the most surreal start to the day I’ve had in quite some time.  As it turns out, some angels wear Lycra – who knew?

• Food.  A constant source of joy and delight.  This week’s offerings include plenty of figs (so. darn. awesome.), some very chocolatey chocolate brownie cake and stacks of oatcakes topped with cheese and doused liberally with home-made bramble chutney.  I also bought a 3 kilo bag of pasta the other day which can really only mean one thing: bunkering down for the cold ahead.

• This post, by The Frenemy.  “You are single because they are coming.  You are single because you are not ready for them yet”.  Perhaps that’s true, perhaps it’s not, but it’s beautiful writing in any case and some days?  Beautiful writing is enough.  This, incidentally, got me reading back through some archives, where I re-discovered this.  Oh, it makes me laugh SO HARD.

• Not having a TV.  Our battle-worn telly finally gave up the ghost the other week.  And we have replaced it with…nothing!  We might come to get another one in time but I don’t feel like I’m missing much at the moment (in fact, the only perceptible downside I can see so far is that I can’t participate in any conversations about the Great British Bake Off).  My flatmate and I are substituting what might otherwise have ended up as TV hours with chatter, yoga practice and listening to old REM albums.

• A shiny new library book.  After a year of waiting patiently, I finally got my paws on Brave Old World by Tom Hodgkinson, which I’m delighting in reading each night before bed.  I do find myself wondering, however, if I read too many books about self-sufficiency for my own good – they leave me with such a hankering for chickens, a wood burning stove and a vegetable patch.  Given my second-floor-flat-in-the-city situation I’m not quite sure how that’s going to pan out, but it sure is fun to daydream.

What’s happening in your world this week?

Image above from here.  A smile made out of bunting? Love.