The current cold dark November days make summer feel like a very long time ago!
Like many of you I have a phone crammed full of photos but unlike a lot of people I do revisit them…. well, some of them… not all of them LOL
On a particularly miserable day recently, I pulled up the folder on my phone with my summer holiday/vacation photos in it. Yes, I do split them out into folders! As I scrolled through them, a thought hit me… had it all been a dream? Looking at the photos, for a few moments none of it felt real. Had I really flown to LA? Did I actually meander in the California sunshine among the canals at Venice Beach? Had I really hiked in the Hollywood Hills? Was I imagining the fact that I had spent 4th July on Santa Monica Pier?
Looking back at those photos made me smile. It lifted my spirits on a miserable, cold, wintry day. They brought back warm memories and added some much-needed summer sun to my day.
So, my question is this… when did you last scroll through the photos on your phone?
You should try it sometime. You never know what precious memories are lurking there waiting to be relived.
Recently I was invited to take part in my first author Q&A session as part of a series of author events run by our local hospice bookshop, The Wee Bookshop in Gourock, Scotland. It was an honour to be invited and Ardgowan Hospice is an organisation close to my heart. They wrapped their arms around my whole family when The Big Green Gummi Bear was ill.
I did all the usual author prep work- ordered copies of my books to sell, had bookmarks made up to give away on the night, dusted off my business card and bought a tub of chocolates.
Then my mind began to go into overdrive with nerves. What would I say? What if they hated me? What if no one asked any questions? What if no one turned up?
Eventually I talked myself down. The event was only scheduled to last for about an hour so I decided to prepare a short talk about how I came to be writing and self-publishing books then leave time for questions and for shopping. Well, it was all about raising funds for a worthwhile cause at the end of the day but how to start my spiel…..
After a lot of thought I decided to start with one of my poems from my poetry collection, Beginnings, called The Flame Inside
The Flame Inside
Deep inside the flame burns quietly.
It flickers and dances as emotions fly by.
Some days its dim as reality takes its toll.
Some days it dances momentarily bright.
Even on the darkest of days, it’s still there safe inside.
I nurture and treasure its warmth,
The heart of my soul at its core.
All that I am wrapped up within it.
Buried deep inside the light is me, the real me,
Tucked away safely,
Protected from reality,
Tended with love and patience,
Until the day comes when the flame can blaze brightly once more
The date of my author events fell only a couple of days after the third anniversary of The Big Green Gummi Bear’s passing which added an extra layer of emotion and poignancy to things.
As I reflected on my poem choice, it resonated with me on many levels.
My creativity took a hit while The Big Green Gummi Bear was ill, especially in the last year or so of his journey, and like the flame in the poem, that creative spark almost guttered and went out many times. I discovered in early 2023, words just wouldn’t flow. It didn’t matter what pen I used; nothing came out and for far too long my work in progress lay untouched. I am pleased to report that that wee flame has gradually grown brighter over the past year.
The flame is also a metaphor for how I felt during The Big Green Gummi Bear’s three-year journey. Supporting someone with a terminal illness is tough. You feel useless. You feel helpless. You feel guilty. You feel exhausted. You feel lost in the dark… but that tiny flame deep inside you is more resilient than you realise.
So, to anyone who is currently supporting someone through a terminal illness, you are doing an amazing job! It might not feel like it but your flame is still there. Keep going… to be brutally honest, you really don’t have any other choice but you will get through this and that flame will help you.
The fundraising event was a great success. Timing these things is never easy. Everyone’s lives are busy. Huge thanks to the lovely people who made it along to The Wee Bookshop and listened to me and asked great questions and most importantly, bought books. Every penny spent went towards Ardgowan Hospice and I was proud to donate £100 to them after the event… I donated the tin of chocolates to the volunteers in the shop too.
Every autumn/fall for the last few years I have gone acorn collecting on a local estate and successfully grown numerous small oak trees. (No idea what I will eventually do with them all)
This year, a week or so later than planned, I headed off on my annual acorn forage. As I reached the first oak tree along the path, there was no sign od any acorns. Maybe I was too late but there weren’t any signs of their “wee hats” lying the grass…strange…
Knowing that there were other oak trees along the way, I kept walking. I passed two fields of sheep and was level with a field with a horse in it, when I spotted five young sheep at the side of the path up ahead of me. I really didn’t think too much about this. It’s a gated estate so they weren’t in any immediate danger. I was more concerned about getting past them without scaring them.
As I approached slowly, they looked round then set off along the path at a trot in front of me. Were they joining my acorn hunt? They kept going, leading the way, as I sedately walked behind them pondering on how I was going to overtake them.
Eventually the path forked and my five fleecy friends trotted off down the right-hand fork towards other fields with sheep in them.
Stupidly, I assumed that they knew where they were going.
I continued on my up the hill.
There were no acorns to be seen. (A bit of Googling later on revealed that this is a lean year for acorns. Last year was a “mast” year for acorns that produced a bumper crop meaning that the trees need time to recover their energy reserves and haven’t produced any acorns this year…. Who knew?)
What I did find instead was conkers (horse chestnuts). Lots of them! Would they germinate and grow into mini horse chestnut trees? There was only one way to find out. I gathered some up in a bag then began to retrace my steps back up the hill.
As I was approaching the top, I wondered if my five fleecy friends had returned to their flock. A few yards further on, I discovered that they hadn’t. There they were in front of me again.
I slowed my pace and pondered on how to get past them this time without spooking them.
Again, they took one look and began trotting along in front of me.
I really hadn’t added “shepherdessing” to my To Do list for the day!
Were they now going to accompany me all the way back to the gate at the entrance to the estate?
No! All five of them trotted along quite happily until the path forked then they headed off down the same path I’d watched them walk down a few minutes before!
I made good my escape before they decided to follow me.
As a fan of Clarkson’s Farm, I now have to wholeheartedly agree with Kaleb Cooper – sheep are stupid! LOL
P.S. I have now planted my conkers so time will tell whether they sprout or not. I’ll need to wait patiently for spring to determine the success of this experiment.
As Autumn/Fall settles in around us, summer feels like a rapidly fading memory.
Yes, I know that the sun rises every morning but there is something healing on a soul level to be found from wandering along the beach on a warm summer morning watching the sunrise.
When did you last watch the sun rise up over the horizon? Stop and think about that for a moment.
Have you even taken the time to pause and watch sunrise?
I’ll confess it’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to fully appreciate sunrise. I’ve caught glimpses of it through the open bathroom window but that’s been it for quite a while. Something that I need to address in 2027.
Those who follow this blog regularly or who know me personally will already know of my love for a particular beach at sunrose so I apologise if I am repeating myself here.
A very long time ago, as a ten-year old girl, I fell in love with one special beach town. To this day, I have no idea why this particular place stole a piece of my heart but it did.
When it came to choosing a location for the setting of my first “book baby” Stronger Within, it was this town that I chose.
Throughout the Big Green Gummi Bear’s illness, I watched the sunrise at the beach via a local webcam and through social medial posts from local photographers. Those photographers don’t know it but they saved my sanity and gave me something to hope for. For their early morning ventures onto the sand, I will be eternally grateful.
My first holiday/vacation alone was spent in this small town. I’d made a promise to myself that after years of watching the sunrise online that when I could, I would sit on the beach and watch the sunrise for myself and I did…. several times.
There is something magical about wandering down onto the beach when the new day is just a glow on the horizon. The world around you feels clean and new. Walking across the expanse of soft sand towards the ocean, the sand is cool underfoot; a stark contrast to how it will feel later in the day when it feels hotter than the surface of the sun!
Walking along the beach barefoot on the hard packed damp sand with the occasional wave washing in over my feet, watching the sanderlings going about their day, keeping an eye out towards the ocean for dolphins and pausing every now and then to monitor the sun’s journey over the horizon is my ideal way to start the day.
It’s just a pity that that town with its beautiful beach sunrises is three-thousand miles away from where I live.
If I lived closer, I’d walk it every day.
Don’t get me wrong, you get gorgeous sunrises in Scotland too. (Just before any local friends moan at me) Many times in the past I’ve diverted off my route on the commute to work to capture a stunning sunrise shot. Pretty as they are, local sunrises just don’t have that bit of magic that makes my beach sunrises so special to me.
Last summer, as you’ll have seen from my California blog series (if you missed it scroll through my blog) I spent my summer break elsewhere. Watching the sunset at the skate park in Venice Beach was special. Those sunsets surrounded by skateboarders and palm tress were wonderful but I’ve a confession…. I missed my beach sunrise walks.
In an ideal world, I’d love a beach town that had those amazing skate park sunsets and mu magical beach walk sunrises but that’s not possible in the real world. (Yes, my beach town has nice sunsets before any of the locals from there complain but those sunsets don’t have skate park and palm tree magic…although yours do have bandstand magic.)
Now as dark mornings and dark evenings loom large on the horizon for the next few months, I’m already dreaming of summer 2027 and, if the planets align, dreaming of more sunrises spent walking on Rehoboth Beach.
I walked into the apothecary, smiling as I breathed in the familiar aroma of incense. Instantly I felt as if I’d come home. The atmosphere in the small shop was always so welcoming, almost as if the shop itself was giving me a hug, a much-needed hug.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and listened.
My gut instinct told me I needed something for my writing desk. Now all I needed to do was listen and wait for the shop to reveal what it was.
Behind the counter, my friend Rosie was finishing with a customer. She smiled as I waved over. Slowly I meandered round the display cabinets, pausing to listen if I thought I heard a voice but nothing spoke to me. The crystals were silent.
I scanned the shelves of oracle and tarot cards. I am a bit of a magpie for decks of cards so it didn’t surprise me when I realised that I already had most of them on my shelf at home. Oops. The Rose Oracle deck caught my eye. It really was a pretty deck but I knew it was already in my collection and that I’d gifted it to most of my friends for either birthdays or Christmas.
I moved on.
Rosie had a table display of journals, incense burners, and candles but nothing there spoke to me which was unusual.
“Hi,” called over Rosie interrupting my search as her other customer left the shop. “I was hoping you’d pop in. I have something I was wanting to show you before I put it on the shelf.”
“Oh, what have you found to tempt me?”
“This,” revealed Rosie producing a large piece of rose quarts from under the counter. “Isn’t she pretty?”
She handed me the hefty piece. It fitted perfectly into the palm of my hand. Its polished face was icy cold initially against my warm skin. I ran my fingers over the uncut front face noting the lustre to it.
The voice in my head sighed and whispered “I knew you’d find me. Take me home where I belong.”
I smiled, “That’s exactly what I was looking for. I knew I needed something for the top of my writing desk. This is it. She’s spoken.”
“I knew it would speak to you,” laughed Rosie. “I knew it as soon as I saw it. She spoke to me too.”
And so, The Wheel turns as summer ends for another year and autumn arrives. This shift is signalled by the Pagan festival, Mabon that marks the Autumn Equinox. There’s no evidence that the Celts celebrated this time of year but there are records of the Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements marking it. The Mayans also recognised it but the name Mabon itself is more modern. As with Ostara in the spring, this is the time when day and night are equal again.
Mabon, according to Wiccan tradition, marks the second harvest and a time when the Goddess begins her annual transition from Mother to Crone in preparation for guiding the world into the darkest part of the year. It’s a time of balance, a time to give thanks for what has come to fruition (harvest); it’s a time to begin preparing for what must be let go (trees shedding their leaves.)
Personally, I find this transition from the light and warmth of summer into the darker part of the year a difficult time. I love summer! I love the light mornings and light nights and the sun’s warmth! But I recognise that the seasons need to change and that The Wheel of the Year must turn. Summer will be back next year.
Autumn is a time of reflection, a time to spend time outdoors in nature. Let’s be honest, despite my love of summer, who doesn’t enjoy an autumnal walk when the sun is shining and the leaves are beautiful shades of red, orange, brown and copper.
It’s a time of year when even our food choices have an extra cosy warmth to them. While I’ll never be a pumpkin spice fan, I do love cinnamon and apples and sweetcorn – all things associated either with Autumn of the harvest season.
As the nights grow darker earlier, there is a certain cosiness to be found from closing the curtains, lighting a candle or two and perhaps writing a reflective journal…or to plan next summer’s holiday!
Recently I took part in Beth Kempton’s online Summer Writing Sanctuary. During one of the classes along the theme of the colour blue, Beth introduced her virtual students to a tool that measures the intensity of blue in the sky. A cyanometer is a circular instrument invented in 1789 by Horace-Benedict de Saussure, a Swiss physicist. There are 53 different shades of blue on a traditional cyanometer and the device helped early meteorologists to determine that the moisture levels in the atmosphere impacted the colour of the sky.
The writing lesson for the day included writing a poem based on the theory of the segments of the cyanometer. Cyanometric poetry?…. not really sure what you would call it but here’s my study in blue. (start reading in a clockwise direction from the small arrow back to the cell with the arrow)
Blue Eyes
And for those who can’t read my handwriting…..
Baby blue eyes
Watching clear blue skies
Endless blue horizon
Ocean waves crash ashore
Blue umbrellas fill the beach
Blue deckchairs too.
Summer scents of sunscreen on the air
My blue Coppertone spray just visible in my bag
A little girl in a blue spotted bikini
And a little boy in blue shorts
Play in the waves
Their blue bucket and spade forgotten in the sand,
