7 Simple joys this May

After a somewhat squiffy* April, May has been much more positive and it's been so much easier rounding up my simple joys. If you're new here, firstly hello, but secondly I do these posts every month to look back at the everyday positives of the month. Because as much as I'm here for celebrating the big stuff, the little things need a bit of recognition too.

_{*I don't think I've ever said squiffy on the blog before, but I'm here for it!}

7 Simple joys this month.

Celebrating our wedding anniversary.

On the the 7th May Dan & I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary. We got married on our 'get together' day so we were also celebrating being together for eleven years too. Coincidentally the band we had play at our wedding were playing again on our wedding date, at our wedding venue, four years later. We decided it was fate and booked up as soon as we could. We celebrated with my sister and her boyfriend, dancing to some of the exact same song that were played at our wedding. It was bliss!

Running.

I'm not great at exercising. I used to be. I used to be able to run for miles and not get out of breath. Now however it's a different story. Or not for long hopefully. I recently downloaded Strava and have been using the running app to track progress. My fitness levels are nowhere near what they once were, but I'm progressing, improving and most importantly actually enjoying moving my body again.

Dipping my toes in the sea.

One of my favourite things about being back in the North East is how easy it is for us to get to the beach. I was brought up by the beach and admittedly took it for granted. It's only when we moved away to Leeds that we were both hit with the 'man, I miss the beach' feels. Now we're back we try and go as often as possible, however it's only this month where we've all braved getting our feet wet. My eldest does it whatever the weather and whatever the time of year, but this month we finally popped our sea paddling cherries... And it was glorious! Obviously freezing at first, but it was amazing.

Visits from friends.

In the middle of the month we had friends come and stay with us. It's the first time we've properly had guests stay with us and it was lovely playing hostess with the mostest. They have a little girl of a similar age to my eldest too which was lovely. Crazy loud, but lovely!

Hot tub times.

My parents in law who live around the corner from us have a hot tub in their garden and weirdly it's taken us a full 8 months to make the most of it. Picture the scene, we're walking through the estate, sliders on, towels in hand, wearing our cossies and coverups looking like we're heading down from our holiday hotel to bag the sun loungers. I bet we looked funny. The hot tubs amazing though! We actually have space in our garden for a hot tub. Whether we actually end up getting one of not is a different story.

Garden renovations.

I've been massively into gardening since we moved into the new house. We've got a pretty big outdoor space and it fills me with so much excitement about its potential. We have a pond which my father in law has been renovating. I'll be honest, I wasn't too keen at first, but now it's taking shape I think it's going to look really good. Dan's built a new fence and I've been growing my veggies. Being out in the garden makes me so happy.

Walking Yorkshires coastline.

One of my simple joys comes from right at the very beginning of the month & that's walking the Yorkshire coastline. Similar to Strava we've also downloaded AllTrails, an app which makes finding walking routes super simple. This month we walked the Yorkshire coastline fro Staithes to Runswick Bay, of course stopping off for fish and chips on the way. It was glorious!

You know it's been a good month when a post like this takes you barely any time at all to write. May has been full of simple joys for me and my family and I hope it has for you too.

What have been your simple joys of the month?