Spring flowers in autumn?

As the summer days move into the past, the garden still manages to gift colour and fruit beyond expectation. and come up with continuous surprises. I was sure I must have seen all of the different flowers and plants which appear throughout the year, but the other afternoon, my eye caught sight of a colour which stood out against the warmer late summer colours. Right under the crab apple tree were some pale lilac petals, resting just like spring crocus.

My mind was immediately challenged. Why were there spring-like blooms resting under the tree? Was the planet so stressed with the way humans have interfered with climate and the seasons, that unseasonal temperatures had forced a a bloom of spring bulbs?

Thankfully, these times do provide answers at our fingertips, and I was quickly able to discover that these delicate little flowers are an autumn crocus. I had no idea there was such a flower, never mind that it was growing beneath my gaze. It is also known as meadow saffron, mystery and fall crocus.

These delicate flowers bloomed for but a few days before wilting and disappearing as subtly as they had appeared. I must have missed them last year. It is too easy to miss those tiny wonders and this is a reminder how important it is to keep our eyes open, even when we think there is nothing new to see.

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Reflections and glistenings

Each year since the start of 2010, I have found the practice of selecting a three-word mantra to be one which grounds and guides me through the coming year. This mantra accompanies me as the months pass, it reminds me of the priorities which I had seen as key for the year ahead and keeps me on track. As we now move well into the final quarter of this especially strange year, I am minded to reflect on my three words for 2020. Words which were chosen carefully, without any inkling of the times ahead. And words which now feel to be eerily apt.

I can still see the expression of disbelief when I described the world before the internet to my grandchildren a couple of years ago. Their faces displaying complete bewilderment. And as for myself, I too find it hard to remember having to search for information, in dictionaries and encyclopedias. Waiting for libraries to open for reference books, poetry quotes and other sources of facts and clarification. Back then, booking tickets and hotels on the phone or by post, and physically going into the bank on a regular basis were the way things were done. Now there has been this entity called the internet in most of our lives for less than half of my lifetime but it is hard to recall what it was really like before it became such an integral part of our lives. When we first got email addresses they looked odd in their lower case formats. Often we would have to share the internet connection and take it turns every day or so to access our emails. Then, when technology became more accessible, we had modems which connected us at home, through twanging phone lines which disconnected our phones while we spent short bursts of time online. How quickly we forget what it was really like.

When I think back to the start of 2020, I am not sure I had even heard of coronavirus. Those little snippets of news reporting that a new virus had appeared in Wuhan were yet to register in our consciousness. Far away, distant in miles, time zones and worlds. And although Asia was very familiar to me, this faraway illness and images of a deserted city seemed unreal and almost fictional. How quickly that was to change.

As the situation in Wuhan was intensifying, the three word mantra which I had chosen for 2020 had formed and was whispering in my ear. “Still, dwell and glisten”, it encouraged me.  When I went abruptly into isolation in mid-March, life did physically come to a standstill. While I was no longer venturing any further than the garden gate to put out the bin and had truly stilled, my mind had not. Anxiety dreams, shock at the impact of the pandemic and a major shift to a completely ‘work from home’ modality meant that my mind was in overdrive. Such an irony as the intent of the word “still” was to motivate me to pause, reflect and settle in my new space. While my mind has been more difficult to “still” I have found time and intent to meditate. and complemented this with a fascination in watching the garden grow around me. This has motivated me to pause and capture this in words and photographs. There is so much that I would have missed had I been living my pre-pandemic non-isolated life.

My second word was “dwell” and intended to remind and encourage me to make my little place a home, fixing the many tasks which need to be done and getting to know the community I had chosen. I had been working my way through those tasks, month by month, and hoping that many would be completed as the end of the year approached. I had become involved with the local writing group and other community organisations and with the lighter evenings arriving, I was looking forward to getting to know neighbours. Isolation intensified the focus of my second word. Being in total self-isolation meant that I was now dwelling completely in my new space, working from the kitchen table with my laptop at the wrong height and using a funky chair in bright and fun kitenge fabric from Rwanda. I was able to spend lunchtimes in the garden, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the hedge growing rapidly while on Zoom calls. And the more the situation continued and we normalised this strange new life, the more I was thankful that the timing of COVID-19’s arrival came after my move here. That I was able to dwell in a peaceful space, surrounded by reminders gathered on my path here. This word is central to my 2020 mantra, and central to maintaining a sense of being grounded through these months.

My third word is “glisten”. It arrived as a late surprise, when I was trying to decide between two other words with similar meanings (enlighten and illuminate). So often when I am selecting my three words, one comes along unexpectedly, and I wonder where it was hiding. Glisten was perfect as I started 2020. It was simple but extraordinary, and required an interaction and cooperation. As I revisit those words which I wrote as the sun was setting on 2019, in those long ago pre-COVID-19 days, I find them intensely resonant.

“We all have light in us that shines, and we all have the potential to make things glisten. This encourages me to be creative, solution focused and optimistic and to keep my eyes open for those tiny, extraordinary moments we can miss when our minds and thoughts are dark.“

As autumn progresses, and the northern winter approaches I feel the need to hold on to these words. The situation has been worsening over the past weeks and we know that this winter will have dark moments. More than ever, there is a need to look for glistenings of hope all around us, like raindrops gently held on the leaf of ladies’s mantle, and where we can, shine a little light to cause a glistening.

One hundred more days

A ladybird shelters on a raspberry leaf, before the rain comes.

Words have been hesitant on this space, for one hundred more days it seems. One hundred days passed by in June. Long, light, warm days where we could slowly connect in outside, safe spaces. The summer breezes softly shifted the raw edges of fear, placing anxiety a little to the side just slightly out of focus for many of us. And as midsummer has retreated slowly into the distance, somehow another hundred days have passed. Two hundred days since that Friday evening in mid March when I closed my door on the world I knew. Two hundred days in this new isolated living.

I am not quire sure where those days have gone. But in that time the fruits have grown, ripened and mostly been eaten, baked or frozen to bring reminders of sunshine in the coming winter months. The autumnal equinox slipped quietly past us last week and the light fades from the sky three minutes earlier each day. There is a chill in the air in the mornings, and the leaves on the trees are taking on warm colours as they ready to wither and drop.

We know that the coming northern winter will bring a darkness which is not just seen in the reduced daylight, but will be accompanied by a sense of nervousness and caution. As outside spaces become less welcoming and the prevalence of illness increases, our connection with others reduces. It is time to snuggle in and find ways of keeping our spirits warm.

As the days have marched on through this strange year, I have sought and found reassurance in the patterns of nature. The little cotton buds on the pear tree have formed into confident, blushing pears. Raspberries have generously formed week after week, finding their way into breakfasts, jams and the occasional glass of prosecco. More plums than I have ever seen, have formed from those tiny little promises and been transformed into pies and plum jam. The bees have continued their work untroubled by talk of the pandemic.

Being the first year in this new garden, there have been many surprises as blooms and colours have appeared. The greatest secret was held closely by the plum tree at the front. Those little plums were so slow to ripen, remaining hard to the touch so I brought a couple inside to see if they might ripen more quickly. A few days later, with no noticeable change, I bit into one. To discover that it was not a plum at all, but a mischievous tiny red apple in a very convincing disguise.

These little plums held a surprise for me

On close inspection – they are tiny, deep red apples.

Those patterns of nature continue, and the birds are the birds are gathering in preparation for their seasonal journey southwards. Lights are switched on a little earlier each day and soon it will be dark before the work day has finished.

We know that the days and weeks ahead will bring dark moments for many of us. Yet, we also know that the days will continue onwards. Every new sunrise and sunset, taking us towards a new season of regrowth and brighter, sunnier days. And as we move ever forwards, I am reminded that this too shall pass. We need to live in these days, not to wish them away, but to bring our own warmth and hope while we do wish for healthier, less precarious times.

The season transitions, leaves falling on the still green grass, as a bee gathers late season pollen.

One Hundred Days

Just a few days before the spring equinox and a couple of days shy of the Ides of March, I took this picture on the way home from work. The bare branches of the trees silhouetted against the deep blue evening in that half light after the sun has rested for the day, just as darkness begins to settle. A northern sky which held the promise of spring and lightening, lengthening days ahead, cloaked with the unseen threat of COVID-19.

As I made my way homewards, I passed the shop, the houses and my neighbours, unknowingly, for what would be the last time in many days. Indeed, now one hundred days, and still counting.

This was the evening I took my regular journey home from work, knowing that the world was changing rapidly and drawing in around us. Not knowing that this would be the start of a strange and surreal period of lengthy isolation. That evening saw the long and emotional conversation with family which drew the inevitable conclusion that I would close my door on the outside world for the foreseeable future, if I wanted to stay safe from the hold which the virus was taking around us. That evening I captured this image of what I thought was an everyday moment, my last photo before everything changed.

I had been anticipating those longer evenings, and the days when I would arrive home from work in daylight. I had moved into my new home as autumn turned into winter, a few days after the autumnal equinox, as the days smartly shorten towards those long, dark days of Scottish winter. Six months later, I knew that I would soon be able to enjoy daylight time at home in the evening after the day at work.

But that certainty was lost in the new uncertainty that was isolation and lockdown.

It has been replaced with another certainty though, one which I hold on to tightly. While humankind has spun out of control in the most developed of contexts, nature has taken a firmer grip to remind us that we are guests on this earth. Around ten days into isolation, the weather brightened and I ventured out into my garden. My curiosity was piqued by a blaze of blue colour beneath a fruit tree. The beauty of newly moving into a home with a garden is that the coming year and seasons will bring surprises. Snowdrops and daffodils had welcomed me home as the year started, but hidden in weekday darkness I had missed much of their presence. This blueness was to be my first garden surprise, as the season continued to march forward, while humankind stood still, holding its breath and counting the R number.

I am still not quite sure what these little blue heralds of hope were, my first excited thought as I spotted them at a distance was that they might be bluebells. I have always wished for a garden with bluebells. As they took their shape, they continued to puzzle me and I still don’t know exactly what they were. Perhaps some unusual crocus or another early spring flower. But not bluebells. For bluebells were starting to sprout elsewhere in the garden fulfilling my bluebell dreams.

Gradually as the days determinedly lengthened, the outline of spindly branches on the trees softened and little growths appeared. Tiny blossom buds were forming, in shades of white and pink .Little promises of hope and regeneration.

I have always dreamed of a blossoming tree in my own garden. My dreams were taking life in front of my eyes.

The labours of an elderly woman over many years in a garden have gifted to me, a season of colour, surprise and even flavour.

Have you ever wondered how blossoms transform into fruits? I have followed the journey of these miracles over the past weeks, fascinated. As the petals gradually fell, I could see tiny promises form in the stalks. Baby pears the size of cotton buds, a cheeky miniature apple the size of a marble,

Through May and into June, the fruits continue to develop and mature. The young, tiny pears are slowly growing, cherries begin to ripen, delicate plums and apples take shape. Gooseberries appear. Gooseberries. I had forgotten about gooseberries, once a staple Scottish summer fruit, now rarely seen as more exotic imports take over popularity. I seem to have the makings of an orchard. I didn’t know I dreamed of having fruit trees in my garden, but my happiness suggests that secretly I did.

The surprises keep catching me. unawares. Just the other day I spotted a glimpse of red through the green foliage. The green berries which had been forming on the raspberry bushes, have been ripening. Smatterings of red appeared as I approached the bushes. The raspberries are quietly and studiously sweetening and maturing.

This is Day One Hundred, the summer solstice, a solar eclipse far over the horizon in the southern sphere and the seasons moving steadily forward as the planet continues to journey around the sun.

This is a day I could not have imagined back in March when I headed home, pausing to take a photograph of a wintry branches silhouetted against a changing sky. While the everyday activities we took for granted are paused, what more powerful reminder that we are guests on a moving, breathing earth.

This morning, my one hundredth morning in isolation, I enjoyed a handful of those fresh raspberries with my breakfast. Yoghurt streaked vibrant red, carrying a taste of childhood summers. I relish the flavour as much as I embrace the promise of hope and recovery that those raspberries have brought to me.

 

Forty days and forty nights

Today marks my fortieth day in isolation. Last night, my fortieth night, a night which saw me visited by disturbing and unusually violent dreams. It is some time since dreams of conflict and air raids have come to me, but last night I lived through serial dreaming of life-threatening attacks, fleeing and sheer terror. I was transported back to my humanitarian work in conflicts in South Asia and the deep basic fear living in such violent times. My recent anxiety dreams were humorous little vignettes in comparison.

I find myself divided. I can rationalise this experience and how my mind is dealing with the scale and uncertainty of such an unprecedented situation. I know and understand that our mental wellbeing is being tested to the very ends of its capacity. I know I have techniques at my fingertips such as meditation, taking control of what I can, escapist reading and when all else fails, the most tasteless of TV viewing. But where the conscious mind strives to stay dominant, the sub conscious and emotional side rise up when least expected and before I know it, I find myself tearful and fearful. I know it is a natural response, I know it is valid. And I know it will pass. Sooner or not so sooner.

What I am struggling with, is how to balance the ability to understand and rationalise the psychological process that I am going through, in the company of very many, with this desertion of my resilience and how that actually makes me feel. I know how I should feel. Thankful, resilient, safe and reasonably well. And know how I do feel. Frightened, alone, distraught and tearful. I am not looking for advice or sympathy. I am purely looking for this to pass, and for this emotional fragility to be validated. It’s ok to not be ok.

I do want to emphasise that it is not so much the isolation, and being on my own that is troubling me at the moment. Though I do not deny that it is odd and disconcerting not being able to go out at all and interact with people in so many walks of daily life. No, it is more that I have no idea when this will end, and what the broader future looks like. So much is impossible to predict while the pandemic is in these early days. Big questions trouble me. The economic shakeout, especially for someone of my age; the health scenario and the prospect of being unable to go about daily life again for some considerable time, especially for those with age and underlying health conditions, again, again like myself; the shock that this will place on society in broader terms as the fingers of this virus dig into already existing divides in our communities; the fact that this is the first truly global emergency I have ever seen, there is no ‘outside help’ to rescue us. We will not see a return to the way things were, but gradually life will settle into its new normality. I just cannot envisage what on earth that might look like and the changes that we will need to adapt to.

I strive to see past this, despite its enormity, and keep a focus on nature and growth around me. Some days it works better than others.

Forty days and forty nights, this is not a long time but nor is it insignificant. I cannot think of another time of life when I have been totally isolated for more than a few days or a couple of weeks. And quite why this emotional heaviness has come at this time, is a mystery. All I do know, is that this is real and I find myself struggling. But I also have a conviction that this too shall pass, and for now it is ok not to be ok.

None of us is truly alone.

Grounded: Poetry for these times

Grounded.

A punishment. A compliment. An observation. An instruction.

A sign of our times.

 

You’re grounded!

You’ve been naughty!

You can’t go out, and see your friends,

no cinema,

or chatting at the corner

Until I say!

 

You’re grounded.

Setting stress to the side.

Breathing in.

Eyelids resting.

The mind’s eye,

unseeing the pain and torment.

 

You’re grounded.

So serene.

Centred.

Settled.

Calm.

How do you do it?

I guess you meditate?

 

You’re grounded.

Stay in, save lives!

For now.

For many days,

and weeks

to come.

 

You’re grounded.

A time to still the soul,

put anxiety to the side,

and try to listen,

watch,

breathe.

 

Do you hear the birds,

as they gather in the timbers?

The bees flitting from shrub to hedge,

checking freshly sprouting buds and blossoms?

Can I hear the breeze

whispering

in the overgrown undergrowth?

I can feel

the late spring sunshine

pushing aside

the winter chill,

trying to warm

my anxious soul.

 

Much is unknown.

New.

Fearful.

Sorrowful.

Tragic.

Unprecedented, all voices say.

Yet the days move along

unaware of mankind’s distress .

 

Still the soul.

Be grounded.

Each day

new buds unfurl,

newborn lambs emerge, surprised innocence in their wide eyes.

Each day

the sun climbs higher in the northern sky

towards summer

and beyond.

 

Towards the days of a new, renewed now.

 

Three words for 2018

“Good evening” I nodded as I passed a well wrapped up couple walking their dog on the shorefront.

“Evening,” they responded, kindly faces pinched in the chill wind.

I glanced at my watch a few steps onwards, and realised it was only a few minutes after 3 o’clock. In northern Scotland the days are short and in those twilight days between Christmas and New Year the sun nudges above the hills just for a short while before resting again below the horizon. It would soon be dark, another cosy night ahead.

Such evenings are perfect to reflect back on the year. Long evenings to review what the year brought, as well as preparing for the New Year. This time last year, I was in Ecuador. To be precise, I had been in the Galapagos Islands on those very twixtmas days, absorbing the unique setting I was in and oblivious to the surprises which 2017 was to bring. I was crafting my 2017 words: “Emerge, explore and intend”. I was ready for what the year would bring.

Or so I thought.

My process of identifying my 3 words combines a foundation of “givens” for the year with the direction, strength and tools to absorb “unexpecteds”. The words were tested to their limit by the past year as the “givens” almost all disappeared.

As I stepped into 2017, I had been living in Africa just a few months and was settling in to this new and inspiring place. A whole new continent and world away from the Asia I had lived and worked in for the previous decade and a half. My 3 word mantra was in place to guide me move forward. Emerge, explore and intend. I was all set to build my confidence and establish my place in my new environment. I was eager to explore my new surroundings. And I set out to approach life intentionally. However, 2017 had a few surprises to put in my path. Serious ill health from early in the year, a long recovery time and a change in the world of work saw me return to Scotland in the middle of the year, ill prepared for the adjustment which repatriation and professional redirection requires. It is not yet timely to detail those changes as there is still work to do to find my feet in a world which has changed significantly since I left in 2000. Writing an article for CABLE, Scotland’s new online international affairs magazine about my return to Scotland, provided a useful opportunity for me to think more deeply on the scale and depth of this readjustment.

This is a transition at all levels, professional, personal and physical. And a transition which was not planned or chosen, but necessitated by a set of external factors beyond my control. To move forward, I need 3 words which are strong and which will guide me to keep moving forward, ensuring I do not flag.

This is the first time in my life when I have not been working (or studying full time). I have been taken aback to realise that I feel stripped of my sense of purpose without the role which work provided. I am still the same person, with the same beliefs and values yet the vehicle to challenge inequity and inspire change was very much bound up in my professional role. This has led me to my first word – search. I need to search to find my place, to find a way to play my part in the world. I want to define and refine my sense of purpose. Searching is also a very practical need. I need to search to find where I can play a role in the Scottish workforce, in a country which has changed so much in the time I was away. I must search for a long term place to call “home”, as my circumstances now are very different. These are important individually, and almost overwhelming when put together. And there is no shortcut, searching and researching are processes in themselves and need time, energy and careful consideration.

And that leads me to my second word. After such change and turbulence, I yearn to “settle”. I have revelled in the variety of places I have lived, without doubt. I had no idea that I would spend so many years overseas and in so many different countries when I left Scotland 17 years ago. Yet, no matter how much I felt “at home” and enjoyed the homes I settled in, I always knew that no matter how long I would stay in a country, it would not be permanent and that leaves a psychological niggle deep down. After so many years of different, long term yet temporary homes, I am warmed by the prospect of a home where I can finally unpack all the elements of my life and truly settle. Indeed, I have experienced uncertainty and upheaval in all areas of my life these past months and I want to focus on seeing that all settle in 2018. These are also not quick or simple processes, but I would like to see at least clarity and stability. I want the dust to settle, and to see the way ahead in my longer term future.

My final word is one which leans on and follows on from the previous two. The various threads of my life are currently loose and straggled. These need to be sorted and brought to some kind of order. I want to begin to “weave” my new life from these various dimensions. Threads are thin, fragile and quick to be blown away when they are single, but when they are brought together, with ideas and direction, they can be woven into a fabric of meaning, strength and beauty. These strands woven together can form stability, clarity and can grow and evolve as time moves forward. Having so many loose strands may be daunting, but this is also liberating. I have enormous freedom to weave the life and future which is right for me. I am eager to for that to take shape and to see what the picture will look like.

As we move through January, these northern days will slowly lengthen alongside the promise of spring and regrowth as nature’s cycles move forward. I have my first Scottish spring in almost 2 decades to look forward to. I welcome a reacquaintance with snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils, as the trees begin to bud and the evenings become lighter.

This is the nurturing backdrop for my 2018 mantra “Search, settle and weave”

Back in Time

This weekend the clocks went back, and we moved from Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time.

This clock changing phenomenon happens twice a year in many parts of the world, but it doesn’t happen at all in many others. In fact, this is the first time in over a decade I have changed my clock whilst in the same country. No borders, no flights or travel to another time zone, but the time zone change comes to me in the middle of the night, and I wake up with a bonus hour.

Clocks change between 1 am and 2 am

When I left Scotland in June 2000, we were in Summer Time which took us an hour closer to the places where I would subsequently live, without this clock changing twice a year. Only once in that 17 years did we have to change our clocks – and that was in Mongolia which was further north and therefore would benefit from this minor rearrangement of the daylight hours. Interestingly, though it did prompt some puzzled conversations in Ulaan Baatar amongst my South Asian friends who had come from lands where there was only an hour so difference between winter and summer months. It was only as the daylight hours started to stretch that the purpose of the clock changing became clearer. I realise that I have taken the rationale for Daylight Saving Time (DST) granted, and tried to explain to those nearer the equator that this is the practice of setting the clocks forward by an hour from standard time during the summer months, and back again in the autumn. This is in order to make better use of natural daylight and align it with the working, farming and school day.

My last year, in Rwanda, saw me living in a land of almost perfect equinox as Kigali nestles just south of the Equator. The daylight variation throughout the year was around 15 minutes and on a neat 6 am to 6 pm divide.

It is always lovely to return to Scotland in those midsummer days, when the light stretches throughout the late evening, and never quite disappears. The sky takes on a deep luminescent blue for the three hours of almost darkness. Of course, this means that in winter the opposite is the case, and the days are short, with full daylight coming through after the start of the working day and disappearing before home time. In those months, we feel that we live in darkness. My annual visits were almost always in summer, and it is a strange step back in time to see the days shorten. And we are only just stepping out of October, and much as I try and prepare myself for the short days I know that it will take some adjustment.

These short days can bring a soft winter light and a changing landscape with different colours and many more berries bushes that I remembered. These bushes and now bare trees are inhabited by birds which I can be reacquainted with as I walk along pathways, all wrapped up, listening out for their chirrups. I have already seen grebes, finches and even that symbol of the British winter – the red-breasted robin.

Photograph from Woodland Trust – https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2016/12/top-15-winter-birds/

This means that I need to keep my eyes and mind open and make the most of my step back in time.

Change of Scene

The past weeks have seen me on a journey of the mind, body and spirit. One journey has been a physical one. I have long yearned to visit Ireland, and previous visits have been short and never far out of Dublin or Belfast. I have also long hankered after a writing retreat and kept returning to the details of a memoir retreat in rural, western Ireland. My return to Europe provided the time and space to take that opportunity. And so, at the start of September I travelled to Dublin on a one way ticket, clutching my notebooks and writing, a train ticket to Galway and a booking for Bed and Breakfast on the way. That journey deserves its own story, and space and will be told here very soon. My story today is one closer to home.

I returned from Ireland a few days ago, to a realisation. As I had travelled northwards through the counties of Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal I was taken aback at how quickly the trees were changing colour. Of course, I knew in my head that it has been many years since I have been in this part of the world as autumn takes hold, but I clearly had not absorbed this. Every corner we turned, brought a vision of yellowing and crimson leaves against evergreen and slower-to-turn green leaves. The colours continued to surprise me as I travelled Scotland-ward through Derry and Belfast and across the water to Cairnryan. The last time I experienced autumn was in 1999, and here we are 18 years later. And how I continue to be taken by surprise!

 

 

 

 

 

The seasons in my years overseas have been centred around rains and the mirror dry seasons, pre-rains and cooler months. My returns to Scotland have generally been in the UK summer months, and so I have become conditioned to seeing green grass, leafy trees, heather and even bluebells while here. In Asia and Africa my only experience of a similar change of seasons was in Mongolia, where the flowers and leaves died in a matter of days as the temperatures plummeted with the first snows. This was the rapid transition into the long wintry period which would see -25C considered to be warm. Furthermore, the arid climate in Mongolia meant that the landscape was less forested and the steppe vast in its expanse of grassland. Not so many leaves to fall. While the season was called autumn, it was not visibly autumnal in my memory.

Now back in Scotland, as my being readjusts to the flora around me, I also realise that I need to become reacquainted with bird and animal life which was once very familiar. Gone are the sounds of sunbirds, mysterious singing warblers, chirruping geckoes and noisy frogs. Now I hear seagulls, starlings and other new sounds in the morning.

As I was walking through a nearby woodland park the other day, my friend pointed out a few of the Scottish birds around us. She is a bird and nature lover and able to identify the sounds and sights around easily. A little robin hid just from view on a tree above, his tutting call the only giveaway to his presence. My friend then spotted a pair of little grebes, the smallest diving grebe I learned. They seemed to be a couple, the male with his russet neck and the female in her more muted blackish grey plumage. From what I could see, he would dive while she bobbed on the surface. When he surfaced, often a little distance from where he had disappeared, they would speed towards each other and he would gently feed her, before diving once more.

We continued to walk around the small loch, observing and trying not to intrude on life going on all around us as I learned and relearned about my Scottish surroundings.

No matter what the setting is, in which part of the world and whatever the climate might be I am humbly reminded of one important message. It is so important to pause, and to take in what is happening around us. We might think we have become used to our surroundings, but we can always look with new eyes, and listen with newly tuned ears. It is not physically what we see and hear, but how we look, listen and interpret what is around us that brings appreciation.

I must keep reminding myself of this as this period of adjustment leads to gradual settling.

Retreat

If there is something I have learned over the past years, it is this. I thrive in retreat. I embrace being in nature and far from crowds, madding or otherwise. I don’t need entertainment or sophisticated surroundings. I can sit and listen to the river flowing, the breeze in the trees and the sounds of critters and birds about their daily work. I have learned that this is important for my wellbeing and in fact is the most effective way to replenish energy and refresh my body and soul.

This year has been intense. Globally, we have seen and felt shockwaves we could never have believed, and we have heard the anguish of those affected by hate and conflict. The year has been one of enormous change for me personally, and one which has been healthy in many ways but its intensity has left me drained and spent. I need to face the coming year with energy and renewed enthusiasm. And for that I have again retreated, and ventured far to do so.

This means that the silence of the past weeks on this space is being gently lifted as I put together reflections and share with you some details of this retreat. I am working on the three words for the coming year and catching up with the past months. The Feisty Blue Gecko has been but resting and is ready to emerge refreshed.

To set the tone and provide a taste of what is to come, I share now a picture of my new neighbour, a sweet little blueish bird the likes of which I have never seen before, who was busy eyeing up this avocado while managing to pose for me.

My eyes are open, my ears are listening and my mind is letting go of the intensity of the past months. Let the revitalisation begin.