Unexpected catches

The sun was shining, the windows were wide open and we were driving along the road when all of a sudden I saw a single leaf being tossed and blown ahead of me. It was high up but was falling as we got closer.

Some madness in me made me stick my hard out of the window and reach for it as we approached the spot. I caught it!

Laughing out loud I pulled my hand back into the car as I looked with amazement at the leaf in my hand.

I never really believed I would touch it, but there it was, in my hand.

My smile lasted for ages. We released the autumn leaf back into the light breeze as we continued down the road. A wish for more happiness on our lips.

I realised that that was a marvellous and unexpected catch.

While on a walk later that same day my eye caught something else falling from the sky. Again I reached up and a single white feather landed in my hand. More laughter followed at my good fortune.

Sometimes life is festooned with unexpected pleasures and opportunities. I’ve found that I just need to look out for them and be ready to catch them. It’s all good!

Nature lessons

Walking through the streets the other day I saw magpies, blackbirds, thrushes, and pigeons. They were flying in seemingly random style them they all alighted in the same tree. Have you ever noticed that different birds can share the same tree without quarrelling?  Why can’t people do that as well?

On nature walks we often see several species of ducks happily cohabiting together. They sleep, eat and feed together. Yet as humans can’t seem to get on at all and then we have the gall to say that we are the higher intelligence. It makes me wonder.

Beaches and gardens

I am sitting in the garden looking at the solitary rose bush that I have. It is an Anniversary Rose. It has been flourishing for the past four years. But for many years before that it stood almost as a single stalk, then something changed and it started to spread. At the moment the new buds are struggling to break through in every area of the bush and this view somehow reminds me of my mother who loved roses and tended them in our gardens every year with such gentle care.

When I used to work a plot at the allotment I was constantly reminded of my father. Both my parents were people of the earth. My father use to farm land in his homeland of Jamaica, he also kept animals and he transferred these skills to the English countryside where his crops and animals flourished for many years. He was always growing something; he even planted his own grapevine and bunches of grapes – albeit small for the first few years – were determined and quickly became established.

I now have several flowers in my garden that come from plants that my father had sown in his last garden. Each year I am reminded of him as they bloom and spread in their indescribable beauty.

When I spend time in nature, whether in the garden, on a forest walk or a beach, I am reminded that nature is almost timeless in its displays. You can be on an isolated beach anywhere and forget which country or century you are living in: the sand, the water and the rocks remain constants.

Whenever I am in the city I can see the trappings of civilisation and they are always dated. In nature there is an enduring sense of connecting to the eternity and people that were before me and touching the eternity that will come after me.

Just looking at this Anniversary Rose bush fills me with memories of different lands, sunsets, beaches and people.

Nature watch

Happiness is sitting in the evening sunshine watching a vixen and her three cubs playing in the hedges. The cubs play with each other and run and roll without fear. They chase birds that alight near them. They are curious about everything.

As I walk slowly forward to the fence to observe them, the mother goes onto high alert and, with ears pricked up, she faces me head on. She looks directly at me, daring me to do her cubs any harm. They have picked up on her sense of potential danger and have moved their play closer to where she is rooted to the ground. But still they play.

She watches me as I watch her. Then she slowly slinks away along the border of the trees. Her three cubs obediently follow her.

I continue to watch them. She continues to watch me. The cubs have no interest in me.

They are learning how to be ... themselves in this environment. Nature ... watching.