Wonderful Wednesday #47

Happy restful-sort-of-a-Wonderful Wednesday dear and sweet ones.  Thanks kindly for sticking by this little spot throughout the last six weeks or so - life has been HECTIC.  Working in retail means my end-of-November and December sort of just vanish into one big blur of early starts, late nights and not knowing what day it is from one day to the next!  I hope you shall PARDON me for taking a break from the Wonderful Wednesday bus last Wednesday?  It being Christmas eve and all, i had worked a twelve hour shift the day before and was ever so looking forward to just curling up with mulled wine, mince pies and the Mr.  Which i successfully did and it was jolly and good and so very needed.  

Anyway, how was your Christmas?  Ours was quiet and LAZY and filled with cuddles, long lie ins and sneaking whisky into afternoon coffees and for eating breakfast gone 10 o' clock.  It gets WILD around these parts come this time of year i can tell you!  The Mr cooked the most delicious and tiniest of Christmas lunches and we watched films and spent time with each other.  And then i threw myself right back into work to launch our sale the day after Boxing Day!!  This week i am off Tuesday, (Wonderful) Wednesday and Thursday and i am so very ready for it i can't even tell you!  But what has been keeping me alive (excuse the dramatics!) in the first few days of this week?

*  Stillness.  Tuesday was my first day off by myself doing NOTHING in what feels like a long, long time - even if it wasn't actually.  I spent it out on those two wheels, on a bright sunny day.  I gulped in as much icy air as my lungs could manage and then snacked on flapjack and a large cappuccino.  I sat on the wall by the cathedral and watched crazy sale shoppers race between shops, laden with bags, and enjoyed my own company.  It was HEAVEN.  

*  Clean sheets, clean me, clean pyjamas and a quilted hot water bottle every.  Single.  Night.  Also HEAVEN.

*  Witnessing what might be our COLDEST day so far on Monday.  Falling asleep with all of the ^above^ on Sunday evening and leaving the skylight blind open just enough to watch the frost sparkle in the moonlight on our sweet window and feeling so warm and toasty.  

*  The Mr.  I feel as if sometimes I don't tell him enough quite how GRATEFUL I am for the good soul that he is through and through:  for making our two-person Christmas magical, for not minding my festive/sale/work grumbles and crashing and banging about sleepily at silly o'clocks in the mornings lately.  For keeping me all TOGETHER and for giving the best hugs.  

*  Tea.  God yes TEA!  How do people not drink tea?!  It has been keeping me alive lately it really has.  Dark mornings sipping strong, hot tea in only the light from the Christmas tree.  The only way i function on early starts, honest-John!

*  Freshly WASHED hair.  Silly simple!?  I used to be the sort of person who got up, showered and washed and dried their hair every morning.  Pah!  Not anymore.  Sleep is like nectar!  Now I always shower/bath before bed and try and stretch washing my hair out for as many days as is humanly possible.  I don't know what i'd do without dry shampoo.  Often the thought of having to wash and then dry my hair feels like the worse thing in the whole world (drama queen much?!).  As soon as it's done though, i am forever reminded of how good freshly washed hair feels and smells and along with clean sheets, it's a recipe for the sleep of your life if ever there was one! 

*  Frost.  You can tell i don't drive anything other than a pushbike.  I am the FIRST person to get excited at even the smallest hint of snow.  Whilst we haven't been blessed with any of the white stuff (yet, YET!  It'll come i'm sure of it) we did wake up to a blanket of white and icy frost on Monday morning.  Watching the sun come up by the Christmas tree, clutching a sweet little bowl of dark chocolate and hazelnut porridge and seeing the frost glisten and everything sparkle was just MAGICAL.  Even if i did slip a few times on my wobbly walk to work… 

*  PROPER hot chocolate.  I'd never been much of a hot chocolate fan until i met the Mr.  Which for one is odd, odd, odd as i pretty much live, eat and sleep chocolate (walnut whip anyone?).  But as it turns out i just hadn't ever had the Mr's ultimate hot chocolate.  I knew that man was a keeper from day one.  Last night we settled down after a chilly late night food shop and a quick thrown together soup kind of a dinner and decided our tummies needed liquid gold chocolate.  Now i don't quite know the ins and outs of this recipe (maybe i'll do my research and fire up a mid-January recipe post on it for your lovely tums?) but basically, this extra SPECIAL hot chocolate is made solely from Green and Blacks Maya gold chocolate, warmed organic milk, cinnamon and cardamon and……the sweetest little drop of whisky.  The type of whisky is apparently crucial.  But i know nothing about that sort of thing.  What i can tell you is that stuff is the FIXER of everything ever.  

*  Sale TREATS.  I know I know.  The last thing i should be doing is scampering about other kinds of sales when i am moaning and grizzling and grumping about our own BUT i managed to snag a beautiful Orla Kiely pot and the sweetest dark purple velvet round cushion decorated with pompoms and a woollen coat i had been lusting over for at least three months.  *cartwheels*

Now thats IT.  I am done and January can stretch out ahead of me and i shall live on chocolate porridge and tea and actually be rather jolly happy.  Just joking.  Is it wrong i feel ready for Spring already?!  
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How are you all? I've MISSED you.  I wish we could all go for a frosty walk and have a proper catch up.  And then fill our tummies with hot chocolate afterwards.  But you shall just have to leave me your Wonderful Wednesday…wonderful-ness (?) below!  Or remember you can give me a nudge on Twitter or Instagram.  I'm @sallytangle on both !

Have the most Wonderful of Wednesdays all!  After all it is the last one of 2014!