Made 4 large jars of tomato chutney with excess tomatoes from the garden that I didn’t want to go to waste yesterday. Also canned some home grown beetroot a few weeks ago (there were another 2 jars, but they’ve been eaten already)!!! Hoping the remaining two jars of beetroot and these chutney jars will not be touched until Christmas! Why do I hear the words “Bob Hope, and “No hope” ringing in my ears? 😆
Finally, baked some cookies because you can’t have a cuppa without a cookie—at least not in this house. Ha ha…. these will last all of a few days.
Anyone else {dare I ask} starting to prepare for Christmas?
I am such an autumn person. Give me a quiet cosy spot with a simple view of gorgeous trees with colourful leaves on a crisp September day, fluffy socks, a warm drink, and a good book and I will be in my glory.
Please note: The girls in the Serenity Circle group are taking a break from posting for a short time. We would like to thank everyone who follows the circle each month and encourage you to stay posted because this is not goodbye, but rather “bye for now”. We hope to resume again in January 2021.
A couple of months ago, I enrolled on a documentary workshop hoping it would help me record these historic times through photography.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to connect with this workshop for some reason or other.
Nature photography
When it comes to nature photography however, I could lose myself for hours shooting and editing this particular genre. It’s a real fine creative outlet and beautiful pastime—I’d be lost without it.
On Sunday afternoon, hubby and myself packed a picnic basket and headed out into the countryside. It was misty and even drizzly at times, but it was quietly comforting being inside the warmth of the car enjoying the scenery in passing after not having taken a trip like this in so long.
We kept well within the required ‘local’ vicinity (i.e. a 5 mile radius of home) but even so it seemed like another world! I couldn’t fathom if this was because we hadn’t been into the countryside for a good long while or because the weather seemed to drape the old familiar in a protective misty blanket making it take on a totally different appearance and atmosphere—perhaps it was a little bit of both.
Don’t be afraid to go into the mist—be excited because you don’t know where you will end up.
—Sophie Madden
The countryside was so incredibly ‘quiet’ and ‘still’ and in a way it felt as if we’d stepped back in time to when there was much less traffic and noise on the roads and everyone walked or cycled from village to village. It was nice to get a ‘glimpse of a kind’ into what life may have been like years ago (before most people could afford a motor vehicle)…. and I believe I could definitely get used to it—the peace and quiet side of such anyway!
I was reminded of a saying that has been repeated in various places over the past few months and one which has stuck in my mind since hearing it:
In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to.
—Dave Hollis
So many of us have tasted a more relaxed and much simpler pace of life in recent months and it’s going to be difficult adapting back to the ‘norm’ we once knew—if such is even possible that is—but perhaps like the above quote by Dave Hollis suggests, we can be a bit more careful about what we choose to include in our new ‘norm’ and what we can leave behind with the old now that we have tasted the difference.
I love to wander in nature along with my camera and absorb the scenery around me. I like to take my time to look—I mean “really look” at the beauty that often goes unnoticed when we are busy and don’t (or can’t) take the time to slow down.
If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere. — Vincent Van Gogh
