With all the bad news in the news, especially lately, I am even more grateful for my ordinary joys.

While making sure my head remains above the sand of this world (as much as I can stand), I remember and appreciate all the good things.

Spider Boy and I are loving the lack of routine of the school holidays, and oops there goes my “posting schedule” and look lets blame the computer/Internet again. I think the computer’s Internet is a bit broken, something to do with using all the data (thank you Spider Boy’s music teacher who has apparently introduced her students to the wonders of Wii “Just Dance” on YouTube) .

Yes, we did some dances in the living room in front of the computer.

So now my son knows about One Direction. It’s a boy band in case you don’t know.

I feel I’ve come full circle back to my Backstreet Boy days.

A figure eight  if we go back to NKOTB.

So anyway going over the data limit means I’m posting this from a mobile device. Hopefully it publishes OK as the configuration is a bit strange in the draft version.

So now, on with my “joy in the ordinary” for the past week.

Last weekend I took Spider Boy to a park near my sister’s place where he climbed, slid, swung and then frolicked in a field of daisies. Then picked some for me, bless him.

Later we had coffee with Bat Gran and Señorita Margarita at Top Hat café  in Clovelly. Margs had a coffee card with a free coffee. So we went there. It was lovely cafe; Light, airy, fast and friendly service, calming yet interesting decor and reasonably priced, good coffee and accompanying cherry toast and fruit loaf. Can’t remember now if that’s what it was called exactly but it was fresh and tasted home made (in the good way).

The bathroom was interesting too, with a light-fitting impressively made of takeaway coffee cups! (NB cute little top hats pattern)

Coffee was followed by a drive along Campbell Pde, Bondi, on the way to McDonalds for The Happy Meal I’d promised Spider Boy. Sundays at Bondi draw the peeps, no matter the season. But this wasn’t just a normal Sunday, it was The Festival of the Winds – so dots of colour filled the sand and sky, but as I was in a moving car (Bat Gran was driving) I couldn’t really get a great shot of the kites. I often think about going to Bondi on a Sunday, and when I do, I am reminded of just how crowded it gets, especially in warm weather. I grew up in Bondi and continued living there in my 20s and into my 30s. I love the place, but it is sooooooo much more relaxed during the week.

Later that day, I made this chocolate and blackberry chocolate pudding, with a recipe from the back of the Creative Gourmet frozen blackberry carton. It was a success and worked well served hot with vanilla icecream.

And thank goodness I have started going for walks again. The weather’s been sunny and dry the last couple of weeks  and it all seems a bit easier. We had what seemed like a month of rain in August (something like the wettest August Sydney had seen in 10 years). And really there’s no excuse not to get back into walking, especially when the terrain is sea-level flat, and picturesque too.

I hope whatever you’re doing or wherever you are, you are finding the joy in the ordinary this week. We are off to Canberra for Floriade, the annual spring flower festival, so will post about that next week.