*three things that make me smile: an exercise in gratitude – feel free to steal this idea with wild abandon and fill your blog with the happy*

First this week, I’m delighted that the raw Jersey milk arrived in tact on Tuesday (second time lucky). I’d also ordered some cream and so, although the cheese-making has to wait a day or two, I have made some lovely vanilla ice cream… and we have perfect weather for it. This is all the more special for me because I can’t eat ‘normal’ ice cream because I’m lactose intolerant. However, if I make my own I can pre-treat the dairy with lactase enzyme and then I can eat it.

This picture doesn’t do it justice – it’s much yellower than this

Second, I’m delighted with the germination of some seeds we bought at the Eden Project. I have always been rather taken with Sensitive Plants (a sort of Mimosa, the leaves of which close up when you touch them) and when we saw packets of seeds of them at Eden, we thought it would be fun to grow some as a living souvenir. I sowed the seeds just over a week ago, and we’ve had lots of germination.

First soak the seeds

Third, I’ve been particularly amused by the antics of my vaark friends on Twitter recently… yesterday they were being very naughty and it genuinely made me laugh, and the day before they sent a picture of The Rosalind Franklin Building at Wolverhampton University (because my purple stripy varrk is named after the great lady). There’s nothing like a bit of social media silliness, is there?

So, what is making you happy this week?