special little things

I can't remember exactly when I first noticed this, but possibly it was with my mum over the dinner table. Later I people watched on the London tube and read faces. This is what I noticed: even when a person is 'expressionless' their lips may be turned up or down in a reflection of their general mood.

They are not smiling, but the corners of their mouth edge upwards. Or they may not be weeping, but the mouth sweeps down and the bottom lip pushes forward into something of a pout. On bad days I catch myself pouting, and on happy days the laugh threatens to bubble out of twitching lips. Personally I prefer the happy days, which is good, because today was a happy day of shining eyes and upturned mouth.

Nothing hugely significant, depending on which scale you choose to measure with, but I had some pretty big wins. A friend and I rode to Evandale Market and back. I've been dreaming of this since I started riding at the beginning of the year. Evandale is about 20km out of town, a cutesy English looking village with a great little market every Sunday morning. I wasn't sure how I'd go with a 40km ride, but we rugged up warm and decided to enjoy the day - no time records here. (Although technically I guess, since it was our first ride, we still managed to set a record. Now to break it)

It took about 95 minutes there, and 85 back, all of it in the freezing cold on beautiful country roads surrounded by vineyards and sleepy farms. It was so lovely riding with finches frolicking along right beside us, and languid sheep eyeing us off as we cycled past.

Bodgy camera work I can't even fix with
an edit, but it was really beautiful!

We lingered a little in Evandale, though we soon felt chilly as sweat turned to ice. And then I saw it. A Mouli food mill sitting quietly on the bench of a market stall. I have been hunting for one for a few weeks now. I managed to pick up a mouli julienne locally for $10, but a Mouli food mill has eluded me. They either don't have the three different puree parts, or I was outbid, or they just couldn't be found. Now I've been watching one on ebay for a week, and I was ready to resort to an auction sniper to make sure I got it. No matter that the bidding war might force the price up, or that I had to pay postage. I wanted that mill. And now I have one, good and honest.

I can relax, delete the Mouli off my watch list and start pureeing to my hearts content. $14 was all I had to pay... I was so delighted I forgot to bargain.

And so the grinning began. A successful ride to Evandale, and a mouli. Doesn't take much to make me happy! One enormous baked potato to fuel the trip home, and we were back on our bikes heading home. And not even that enormously long hill up to White Hills wiped the grin off my face. Love it.

The clouds were amazing - looking for
a mountain or two to snow on I think.