Thinking Slowly

Trying to live more slowly is proving difficult for me as not rushing means doing less and then getting stressed over things left undone - not the calm situation I was hoping for.

I've been reading a bit about yoga, meditation, mindfulness and think I perhaps need to change my mental attitude to rushing. I am an enthusiastic list maker and those lists that don't get written down are always whirring around inside my head and stopping me concentrating on what I'm actually doing. So while I will still try to physically slow down a little, I am now trying to give a bit more attention to what I'm actually doing in any given moment instead of mentally organising the future.

Today I had to drive my husband into town for a business meeting at 7:30am. Our youngest son came with me and we took a short detour to a local nature reserve on the way back.



This lake is really near the motorway and there was a constant roar of traffic but in the midst of that it was still very peaceful. So this is what I'm aiming for, moments of calm within the rushing and busy-ness.

A Spring Walk

I heard on the news that during the Easter weekend which is the busiest UK travel weekend, 2.5 million people will be flying abroad. Out of a population of 60 million that just seems a huge number - just imagine the number of flights, the number of aircraft that must exist to carry all those people over the space of just a few days. Anyway we stayed at home ( we haven't even used the car for the past two days) and have enjoyed very warm sunny spring weather.

This morning we walked on local footpaths to the nearby village of Silchester which was an important Roman Settlement. Most of the roman town walls and the amphitheatre are still standing. The modern day village stands outside the old walls but the village church is within them.

The amphitheatre - built approx 50-75 AD.

Roman town walls

Also a couple of "non-roman" photos from our walk.

A very cute alpaca

Some larch cones just because I like their colour!

Winter knitting

During a week of some exceptionally high temperatures I have finally finished knitting a chunky aran-weight cardigan! It has been T-shirt weather here today but the evenings and nights are still cold so I will probably get an opportunity to wear it before the warm weather is here to stay.

This idea behind this project was to use up left over wool so I gathered a mixture of odd balls together and made a multicoloured cardigan. I downloaded the pattern from here.



Some of the wool was aran weight but most of it was Shetland 2ply jumper weight used double. I had quite a lot of oddments from a couple of fair isle projects.



I am reasonably pleased with the finished cardigan. Its the first top down garment I have knitted and it was good not to have to do any sewing. The one thing I would change if I knit it again would be to knit the button and buttonhole bands afterwards instead of all in one go. I used rib and it made the edges very stretchy. I haven't put any buttons on yet until I work out how to make the edges firmer and somehow tighten/shorten the edges so that the fronts are the same length as the back.

The weather is forecast to be fine and warm for the next few days so we are set for a good holiday weekend. Enjoy the holiday/Easter break.

Celandines

I took this picture yesterday. It was a really warm summy day and all the flowers were wide open. Celandines are one of my favourite wild flowers and I allow them to take over parts of the garden. The dark leaved one and the pale cream one are cultivated varieties but they are being squeezed out by the wild ones. I have been hoping that by some miracle of cross pollination I might get a dark leaved one with pale flowers which would make me a fortune but I don't think thats going to happen!

Slowing down

I find it very difficult to slow down as I am one of those people who likes to be doing something the whole time. This week however I am going to make a determined effort to live more slowly.

On a working day our alarm clock goes off at 6:15 and I get up and get busy. This week the boys are on school holidays and my husband is away working in the States for a week, so no alarm clock is needed and no rush to get up. The plan is to get up when we wake up and just concentrate on doing things one at a time without clock watching. Taking and picking up from school at different times on different days means I am always looking at the clock but this week there will be no imposed timetable.

To be honest teenagers are already pretty slow in school holidays anyway, in fact it seems to take quite an effort to prevent them remaining horizontal most of the day so perhaps its only me that needs to slow down!