Our Word of the Week is Nostalgia

This week so many little things which reminded us of other little things so the best word to use we think is nostalgia. We quite like the sharing of our word of the week and also seeing what other words other people come up with too. We would highly suggest that you click the word of the week image below if you’re curious like us and want to know how other people spent their week too. You can see the links from other people there.

Can we talk about how glorious the weather has been this week? It certainly cheered me up and put a pep in my step. I think I did everything this week with a smile, which is how I like it to be. When I was a teenager, I saw this quote: “A smile is contagious so go infect some people today”. For some reason, I’ve always remembered that thought and I know a smile from me or from someone else is always a nice little gift.

The weather was so hot on some days that we were happy that the plants were getting a break from the slugs and snails. As a result, we were able to reap some of our calaloo. More on that in a bit. Most of the sunflowers (one of my favourite flowers), have been devoured by the slugs or snails but we still have about 3 that are still standing tall. They haven’t shown any sign of flowering yet, but there’s hope and they have taken the chance and shot up in the weather.

Ok, I think I’ve spoken about our red and green Amaranth before. It’s our favourite green leafy vegetable and they now have the red variety. We had got some of the seeds from one of our YouTube subscribers in Florida last Summer. We had planted some outdoors and some inside the conservatory where they wouldn’t be attacked by the pests. They also took off in the heat and on Thursday we had a YouTube Live where we showed our garden, reaped our harvest of red and green calaloo and then prepared them for cooking on Friday.

We were so excited, we even burst out into sons and a tiny little dance. It reminded us of our grandmother and grandfather in Jamaica planting and reaping their crops that we would all eat. Those were happy days and we were extremely lucky now that I look back! I’m trying to think of whether I’d ever seen a slug before I came to live in the UK. I don’t think so. It’s way too hot for them to survive the heat! I think I remember seeing little snails with their little shells though.

And here’s a plate of our red and green Amaranth (AKA calaloo) from this morning’s breakfast.

Have you ever eaten calaloo before? The flavour is unique and you should try it if you can.

Talking about nostalgia, our shower is broken again! To be fair, it’s not the shower but the electrical system that needs to be updated in order for it to be able to run modern electrical appliances and systems. Well, we’ve been bathing in a small plastic bathtub this week. It’s comical, I know, but that’s how we used to bathe when we were little back in Jamaica. So it’s back to those days until we can get an electrician in to sort things.

So the days of having workmen in with their mess is coming back upon us. We are hoping it won’t take too long nor be too noisy as we have to work here too.

We love the sounds of Summer and with the longer evenings, there’s more buzz of activity outside even from the neighbourhood kids. I must admit that sometimes they are a bit too noisy, or is it because we have to keep the windows open in the heat? I try to grin and bear it when I remember that no one chastised us for being out and running and chasing each other when we were growing up. Funny how some people don’t remember that they were once kids too.

Well, our lawn mowere also broke and this reminds us of how back home only really rich people had a lawn mower. People (including us) would cut their lawn or grass using what we call a cutlass or machete! Do you know that? Google it, lol.

Have a good weekend and we look forward to sharing again next week.