Embracing the season

For a very long time, I seriously disliked winter. I saw it as a boring interlude between fiery autumn and delicate spring. January especially seemed to drag for an eternity. But now, I adore winter, as I love all the seasons, for the very special gifts that it brings. Join me and let me show you why.

The weather outside is frightful

We Brits enjoy nothing more than discussing the weather, and the winter months certainly give us plenty to talk about. These last few weeks, we’ve seen strong winds, days of fog, rain, sunshine and hereabouts, snow.

With an energetic cocker spaniel to exercise, not going out is hardly an option (though Hermione draws the line at heavy rain). So away we go, regardless of the conditions. Even if the weather is not ‘nice’ it is has its music too (to misquote Keats).

For days, we had such heavy fog that it was as if the clouds had dropped from the sky to earth. Sound was muffled and visibility poor (see above left). It was a little eerie, but also magical – this still, soft world that looked as if it were covered with tracing paper. Today (above right) the sky was rinsed blue and the light piercingly bright. Each branch and twig was gilded with sunlight and the air icy fresh.

‘There is no such thing as bad weather…

only unsuitable clothing ,’ (Alfred Wainwright, Coast to Coast ) is as true now as when it was written fifty+ years ago. Only now, we have the advantage of high-tech fabrics to protect us from the most severe weather.

Investing in a proper rain jacket (or even better a Dryrobe) means that no weather will defeat your plans. And I love nothing better than being snuggled up in a warm coat with gloves and a scarf and feeling the cold on my face. Few things will wake you up more effectively than a blast of freezing air: it is completely invigorating.

**Keeping toasty** Image: Jeff Costello-McFeat

On our recent trip to the Highlands, the thermometer rarely rose above five degrees centigrade and the weather was, quite frankly, awful, but it barely dented our spirits, as we were kitted out to cope. Even the stinging rain and strong winds that assaulted us as we walked along Nairn beach was stimulating rather than miserable. Our faces were scrubbed clean and rosy by the time we got back into the dry of the cafe. And a hot chocolate never tasted so good or felt so welcome.

Contrast is what makes life interesting

Winter is a time of deep contrast. We leave our centrally heated homes into the chilly air outside; we combat the short dark days by filling our rooms with fairy lights and candles; we take a rest from the hectic pace of spring and summer. As with light and dark, we cannot appreciate one without the other. Artists love winter, because deep structures are exposed and the light (when we are graced with it) is especially sharp.

With the sun low, and setting so early, we are also able to witness the most glorious sunsets.

That which does not kill us

Facing adversity – even in as basic a way as facing the elements when they are not favourable – is an important way to build resilience. Wim Hof has made millions (deservedly) through showing people how to learn mental strength through physical challenge – including the cold.

Taking the time to take a walk outside (appropriately dressed) is the easiest and most enjoyable way of boosting one’s mood. Add a friend and a coffee date afterwards and it is positively perfect. With the January blues affecting so many of us this month, it is a prescription I would recommend.

Acceptance

The most radical change that has occurred in me is the simple acceptance of the weather – whatever form it takes. If you are struggling with the idea of living in the moment, perhaps start here. We cannot do a single thing to change or improve it. If it is miserable, it will pass. If it is fine, that will pass also.

We can complain or be grumpy or we can embrace it. Through searching for the beauty (and you may have to work hard at that in the beginning) it helps us see beauty in other things too.

Winter is an essential phase in the cycle of the year and we may find that winter, in the metaphorical sense, is an essential part of our lives too. But to avoid stretching your patience too much, I shall consider that next week.

**Tree tops in winter** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

This is happiness

From a very early age, I have been in love with the natural world. Perhaps my mother sparked this, placing me in my pram, swaddled in blankets, under a tree in the garden.

Whatever the impetus, the outside is where I’ve always wanted to be. By today’s standards, my childhood was somewhat wild and I roamed the parks and woods with friends much younger than most kids would now. But where some children have street smarts, I had nature smarts. I never came to any harm despite my wanderings and loved the freedom I had been granted.

**Trees and water – the perfect combination** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Childhood wisdom

I knew from shared folk knowledge what I could eat and what I couldn’t; when a tree was too high to climb; water unsafe to swim in. The seasons, not the calendar, marked my days: the arrival of froglets in spring, berries in summer and beechnuts in fall. Winter cold never bothered me and it was irksome to wear a coat. It was even more irksome to have to sit inside on rainy days.

Because for a child, the natural world holds a cornucopia of treasures. Unlike the longed for toy discarded by New Year’s, it offered an ever changing selection.

That love and fascination has never left me. If anything, it has grown over the years, with an attempt to learn more about the environment and ecology. When all the human world fails me, it is to nature that I turn for solace. And it is nature that is helping me heal.

Nature’s healing

I spend a great deal of time outside, with Hermione – sometimes in the garden and sometimes in the shed. It is my outside office: perfect for journaling and dreaming.

With stress contributing to all illnesses, it is essential that we have a place where we can shed the coils of worry that ensnare us. For me, it is my garden or the sea where worries seem, quite literally, to be blown away.

With so much anxiety over loved ones who are suffering at the moment, it is easy to fall into despair. Life, after all, is undeniably cruel. On Tuesday, feeling low myself with infections brought on my stress, I took to my shed to write my morning pages.

This extract, somewhat polished, is what I wrote:

This is happiness

Out the window, above the Tibetan flags of washing, the Downs embrace the town. Higher still, clouds lined in grey silk amble across the skies. As they pass onwards, they pull the shadow from the hills, revealing the bright green, inch by inch, like a strip-tease.

It is neither warm nor cold. Summer and autumn are battling for dominance. Summer brings warm temperatures and autumn, a chill breeze.

The garden has lost her deep green hue and has the look of one exhausted by fecundity. Curling leaves are scattered across the lawn.

I am not well today, yet cannot feel sad or self-pitying. Look! The sun has turned the Japanese anemones the white of a Geisha’s painted face; a butterfly is zigzagging across the grass in search of nectar; Hermione’s warm body rests on my foot …

Observation studies

Observing intently and writing soon become a form of meditation and prayer. Faced with the complex marvels of nature, we are strengthened in our understanding of life’s circularity and that each moment is unique. It helps to anchor us in the now.

**The butterfly – symbol of hope** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

We may choose to take our observations further – to create art, or initiate learning. These too uplift us.

Just before I began this, I read the latest Red Hand Files post by Nick Cave and he wrote:

Joy is not always a feeling that is freely bestowed upon us, often it is something we must actively seek. In a way, joy is a decision, an action, even a practised way of being.

Nice Cave, Red Hand Files 299

Everything he says is brilliant, but what struck me most forcefully is the line ‘joy is a decision, an action, even a practised way of being’. And he is right. We must choose joy despite knowing that life will not always provide it. We must live with the intention of finding joy and bringing it to others and that will require a certain amount of sustained action: ‘practised way of being.’

For me, the natural world and its meditative observation is my practice. The more I commit to my practice, the better I feel. And joy is an emotion that we wish to share, that makes us look beyond ourselves and saves us from the solipsism of depression.

In these difficult times, I hope you find your path to joy.

Please note that there will be no post next week, as I shall be attending my brother-in-law’s funeral.

I Believe in Miracles

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Albert Einstein

A dear friend gave me a book of daily, inspirational quotes and this was one of them. Most of the quotes I’ve read have been impressive and thought provoking, but this one kept nudging me for attention like a new puppy. Einstein gives only two options for living: to view the world as miraculous or completely miracle free. The last option seems just too depressing, but can we learn to see miracles all around us? At the risk of sounding naive, I think that we can.

**A perfect autumn leaf** Image: Tim Hufner on Unsplash

Everyday miracles

Our first obstacle to overcome is the popular view that miracles are exceptional. The Cambridge Dictionary defines a miracle as: ‘an unusual and mysterious event that is thought to have been caused by a god because it does not follow the usual laws of nature’. This certainly applies to the miracles in, say, the Bible, but what if miracles were much more everyday affairs (though no less magical).

When I looked for images of miracles online – almost all were of nature. For here, wonders occur every single day. With my dog Hermione wanting to be outside all the time, I am getting more than the average exposure to the beauty of the natural world. And without question it is worth the numb toes and chilly fingers that accompany immersion in the elements at this time of year.

**Sunset** Image: Dawid Zawila on Unsplash

Some of the clouds this morning had the frayed, liquid edges that you get when dropping ink onto wet, watercolour paper. How does this occur on the great canvas of the sky? I have no idea.

The leaves on the tree opposite my back garden have flamed into vibrant reds and orange and are only now starting to drop. The scientific explanation for this is, ‘a compound called abscisic acid triggers a seal to develop at the base of the leaves, before they fall off. This reduces water reaching the leaf and traps the chemicals remaining in the leaves. They gradually break down, changing the colour of each leaf before it drops to the ground.’ (www.kew.org) Good to know. But does it make it any less marvellous? I think not.

Einstein, after all, was the foremost scientist of the 2oth century and he did not see anything as less miraculous because it followed the laws of science. If anything, advanced science is itself a mystery that keeps eluding our comprehension and categorisation. Einstein himself tried, and failed, to construct a theory of everything. The closer we get to an answer, the further it spins away.

**How do you quantify a human touch?** Image: Liane Metzler

We live in a material world and one which we suppose we can control. The cold outside is rebuffed by central heating within; clean water is piped through taps; food is made bountiful by modern farming techniques. Like gods, we command and dominate nature, bending her to our will.

But our cleverness, like that of Daedelus, may not always lead to the desired outcome. If we are willing to relinquish this need always to explain and regulate, we open ourselves to the wonders that elude measurement.

I believe in miracles.

The morning sun scaling the walls of the horizon is a miracle.

The moon standing sentinel in the black of night is a miracle.

Miracles are everywhere. We do not have to wait long or look far to witness one.

Enhance your Landscape

Nature is without doubt wonderful, but at the risk of gilding the lily, nature plus a little human artistry is even better. For me, the interplay of human adornment to natural surroundings somehow augments the beauty of each. My travels to the North and a recent purchase here in the South has prompted me to share with you ideas for decorating your landscape whether with fine art or using natural materials.

**Giant teapot Yorkshire Sculpture Park** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Sculpture Parks

There are few better venues for sculpture (especially the giant kind) than a sculpture park. I’d been longing to go to the Yorkshire one for ages, since the collection is world class. The sculptures were all modern and often rather witty. The teapot above contained leaves; its counterpart of a wine bottle, grape vines. Though one could not argue that these sculptures exactly blended with the landscape (they were far too attention grabbing for that) they did make a startling and pleasing contrast to the rolling lawns of formal parkland. Juxtaposing huge metal structures with sheep placidly grazing certainly helps focus the attention.

**An engagement ring for a giantess?**
Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Closer to nature

Once in the Highlands, we were absorbed in the glorious, natural surroundings. The ancient forest surrounding where we were staying needed little to make it more perfect, but the activities of the local primary school managed to achieve even that.

**A little trail of hope** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

On the main, large trail, students had arranged painted pebbles for some distance. Some were funny and childlike; some were exquisite, but all lifted the spirits. We spoke to a local who explained that it was a project to cheer everyone up during the pandemic and encourage people to go outside. Eventually, those paints will fade away, as the elements take their toll; however, the pebbles will remain as a sweet reminder of how little steps bind and hearten our community.

**Beauty is Nature** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

In my home town, a Facebook project was launched called Secret Stones. It encouraged children to paint and hide pebbles and to look for others. Once found, they were photographed and possibly rehidden. Guessing the location of the photographed stones was part of the appeal. I love the idea of discovered ‘treasures’ and hope more of us will be inclined to participate in such undertakings. We don’t even need to do it formally: leaving a painted stone or natural object in a park or along a school route is bound to bring the discoverer some joy.

Or we can use natural materials (plus a little man-made) to draw the eye to something we might overlook. Ancient pine forest is, unsurprisingly, littered with pine cones, but this humorous little collection made me look at them anew.

**Hedgehog den** Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Garden ornamentation

If a sudden windfall were to come my way, I would definitely like to invest in some fine sculpture for the garden. That being unlikely (the most I have ever won with my premium bonds being £25) I shall have to remain satisfied with something more affordable.

Luckily for me, a superb artist/sculptor called Paul Cox lives only a few miles away down the coast. We had already purchased a couple of smaller items from him when I was kindly offered a very early 60th birthday present of a sculpture from my mum. After perusing the website, I thought a visit to the studio would be wise. We arranged a time and went to see him. There is something especially lovely about buying something direct from the artist. Not only do you know they have been properly compensated, but the work has a personal stamp. The one we chose was appropriately called Lockdown Easing with the birds escaping from their cage. It has now taken up residence under the apple tree.

Something old, something new

Human beings, it seems, are never quite content with leaving their environments untouched by their creativity. Some of our earliest outdoor sculptures go back millennia. The stunning monoliths at Stonehenge and chalk carvings like the White Horse prove that we have been doing this forever. Now, artwork might take the form of ingenious graffiti drawn on an urban landscape to deliver poignant social commentary. Or, it may take the more feminine craftivist version such as yarn bombing. Whatever shape it takes, it certainly improves the view.

**Who could see this and not smile?** Image: Peter Olding on Wikipedia

My knitting skills wouldn’t extend to making a sock, but I should love to do something to add a little creative magic to my environment. Perhaps I should start with a pebble.

In Praise of Small Things

One year, my son bought me an adorable Flow calendar featuring an illustration of a tiny pleasure for every day. These tiny pleasures might be something as simple as observing a new bloom or a chat with a friend or the first coffee of the morning. Anything that brought a smile would qualify. As I tore off each page, it encouraged me to look more closely at the world and appreciate how little things are often what give us most joy.

Then lockdown arrived and my already circumscribed life became even more constricted. While shielding, I could visit medical establishments, but not much else and my world became my house and garden and the few blocks surrounding it – with occasional thrilling trips to the countryside. I had a choice: go completely bonkers within the straight-jacket of restrictions or find another way to expand my world.

Observing the world from the window. But her mug says it all. Image: Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Look closer

Perhaps it was an early obsession with Mary Norton’s The Borrowers or residual childhood memories of fairies in the garden, but I have always been acutely aware that there is a lot more going on than what we see on the surface. If your world seems small, the trick is to change perspective and look closer. Just as a tiny drop of pond water appears as nothing interesting; put it under a microscope and it will be transformed. There will be a whole world of activity, including tiny creatures too small to detect with the human eye. From what at first seems insignificant and lifeless, emerges something very much alive.

Though I haven’t (yet) embarked on any scientific investigations, I have made greater efforts to look much more closely at the world. And my, how magnificent it is! While at the dog park, I started studying the bark on the trees. Every tree was quite different: some barks were smooth to the touch and some entirely rough. Most showed scars, and many were carbuncled with mounds of either undeveloped branches or parasitic growth. Many were covered in lawns of yellow and green lichen – but, of course, mainly on their north facing sides.

What worlds are contained here. Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

In the garden, if you are willing to sit for a while and refocus, there is endless activity in even a square metre of ground: ants scurrying on their errands; bees and butterflies making brief forays into flowers and beetles with their glorious, iridescent carapaces glinting and colour shifting in the sun.

Starting small

Spring is the perfect time to start thinking small. The season is tentative, knowing that blasts of winter can reappear at any moment with sometimes devastating consequences. So Nature has learned to keep things somewhat miniature until the dangers have passed. The earliest flowers are crocus, snow drops, wood anemones, pansies and violets huddling inconspicuous and close to the ground. Only once the promise of warmer weather seems more certain are they joined by their larger, more showy relatives: daffodils and paperwhites; camellias and hyacinths.

First flowers. The delicate beauty of snowdrops. Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Zoom in

A good friend has recently acquired a macro lens for her phone and sends me gorgeous images almost daily of all the objects and plants she has photographed. Many are unrecognisable so close up, but all have a fascinating attraction. In them, the everyday becomes exotic, almost surreal. The components that make up the stigma and stamen of a flower with the background of vibrant petals looks like some forgotten Georgia O’Keefe painting.

My favourite is of a little piece of moss – now an abundance of green flowers. But what makes it extra special is the Green Man peeking out from the foliage centre right. I’ll let you look for it!

Of course, not all of us have such a lens, but we can still look much more closely at the everyday, perhaps focusing on a particular angle or segment. Either way, the familiar will become strange; the ordinary, fantastical.

Miniature appeal

Lastly, we are programmed to love small things. We may collect tiny charms for a bracelet or have an intricate train set layout. And who doesn’t love kittens and puppies? Small, cute things awaken the nurturing side of us. They need our protection and to be handled with care. Their size and fragility make them precious. And we simply love toys!

We also prefer things which do not pose a threat. Since we are bigger than these tiny things, we feel more powerful and in control when placed in relation to them. In times such as these, a sense of both is to be welcomed.

The appeal for me, though, is in the way that they expand my horizons by proffering a whole new vista in a scaled down form. Our brains, it seems are programmed to respond in such a way. According to Mentalfloss.com, ‘Research has shown that our gaze—and likely our touch too—is drawn to the regions of a scene or object that hold the most information. Part of our attraction to miniatures may be that they provide our sensory-seeking brains with highly concentrated dosages of tantalizing stimulation.’

Miniature humour. Image: Hello I’m Nik on Unsplash

While our movements may be restricted, our minds certainly are not. With a little imagination and a willingness to look a little closer, we can make, as John Donne did with love, ‘…one little room an everywhere.’

Everyday Miracles

Everyday miracles may sound like an oxymoron. A miracle is, after all, defined as something exceptional, unexpected and brought about through supernatural intervention. Yet, this definition is too narrow. Life itself is a miracle, replete with thousands of other little miracles occurring every moment of every day. We only need to change the lens of our awareness to see that this is true.

A very late visitor. A red admiral butterfly swooped past me in the garden this week! Image: Jeffrey Hamilton on Unsplash

Live deeply

As I move into the eighth month of self-isolation, my world has become very small. Except it hasn’t. If anything, it has expanded beyond what I can actually contemplate. Paradoxically, this enforced enclosure has led to my greater understanding of how space, as we normally perceive it, is only one plane of experience. It was as a teenager studying Thoreau’s Walden that I was introduced to this idea. He argues that through subsisting on a small plot of land in Walden woods he is really living. He also argued that journeying beyond the distance you can walk is unnecessary. I was charmed and intrigued and thought he probably had a good point. Then I went off and travelled the world.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…”

― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

And now, I’m home. All the time.

I realised when lock-down started that I could look outward at everything that I could not do and go quietly mad, or I could try Thoreau’s experiment in my little plot of land. Unlike Thoreau, who was living in a basic cabin and largely growing his own food, I had the advantage of a comfortable home and regular grocery deliveries, but I could still see if I could ‘live deep and suck out all the marrow of life’. So that is what I’ve tried to do. I have wobbles like everyone; I have days I want to have a major tantrum (and often go ahead and have one), but what keeps me going (and sane) is spending a part of each day outside looking for miracles. And I am never disappointed.

Look closer

If you are existing in a relatively small, enclosed space, the trick to making it feel bigger is to turn your eye upon it as you would under the lens of a microscope. A drop of pond water looks intriguing and alive when magnified – so too a garden.

What spurred this post was studying the very tiny cone of our Laylandii – and of course, it was a pine cone despite being the size of a berry. I split it open, mainly to enjoy its scent, when out fell dozens of tiny seeds. So that’s how you propagate, I thought to myself. I was delighted. What other secrets were hiding in plain sight? I made it my quest to find out.

Common Laylandii with its tiny pine cones Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

When walking my previous dog in the same park daily, many years ago, I’d given myself the task of finding something new everyday. Discovering 365 new things was going to be a challenge in a small park – even with the advantage of a duck pond – but would certainly make the outings more interesting. The first hundred days were easy – seasonal changes saw to that, but after, I had to look increasingly closer. And the closer I looked, the more I saw. All the things I thought I knew intimately became unfamiliar. At the year’s end, I realised that I was just getting to know the place.

The dazzling and the humble

Very late in the summer, I planted some giant sunflower seeds and eagerly watched them grow. From the original ten, only three survived having been assaulted by high winds, snails and a rambunctious dog. At last, one bloomed – a glorious crown of gold that positively glowed in the late autumn light. Van Gogh would be proud. Amidst a sea of greens and faded brown was this magnificent splash of colour.

Not so giant Mongolian sunflower Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

These are nature’s show stoppers and are sure to make us smile, but not everything can be so dazzling. When we make a conscious effort to look for beauty, though, it turns up in the most unexpected places.

Despite being a little overwhelming and often viewed as a pest, I am a great fan of ivy. We have to hack it back regularly or it would overwhelm the garden, but this deep green gem has more to offer than its gorgeous, evergreen leaves. It too flowers and it too has fruits: orb-like bunches of deep purple berries that rather resemble grapes. And just when these berries reach their perfection of ripeness, our ivy-clad fence is literally covered with pigeons gorging themselves on the fruits.

A feast for the birds. Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Common sense(s)

So much of what we experience is purely through our vision, yet our four other senses are working hard too in order to interpret our world. I was reminded of this whilst sitting in the story shed watching Hermione chase around the garden in the rain. The air was close and filled with a delightful perfume. It took me a moment to identify it as bay. The damp and the still evening was the perfect conduit for this gorgeous scent.

Which made me make the next round of the garden a little more multi-sensory. I picked some sprigs of herbs and ate them. I concentrated on the rain/cold/wind upon my skin and the contrasting warmth of my cosy raincoat. I listened to the birds and tried to identify the different songs: the unlovely screech of gulls and the noisy chattering of the magpies; the staccato soprano of the blue tits and the tremulous high pitch trill of the robin. There are so many birds in the garden and though I recognise their songs, I seldom know who sings what. The RSPB has a wonderful tool to learn bird songs, but I suspect I shall just enjoy the music.

What are your miracles?

The readers of this blog cover many countries and I would love for you to comment on the miracles that you experience in your own environs. Our lives may be bound with restrictions at the moment, but if we bear witness to the beauty that surrounds us, I believe that our enclosure will feel significantly less irksome. Perhaps, we will even find sufficient there to make us truly content.

Ode to Autumn

As I get older and myself enter my autumn years, I’ve found my affection for this season increasing. It is a subtle time full of muted colour, mellow sunlight and crisp, dry days.

It is tempting to think of autumn as summer’s swan song; a last performance before the chill of winter sets in. Yet, autumn is not an addendum to summer, a nostalgic nod to former, warmer days, but a season in its own right filled with the matured glories of the ending year.

Harvest

Pumpkins and plenty Image: Timothy Eberly on Unsplash

Until the 16th century and our gradual move from an agrarian to industrial society, autumn was known as harvest. Indeed, in some Germanic languages, it still is.

I think it a more fitting name, for this is the period when the crops are brought in; a time of plenty, even glut. Keats describes it as:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run
John Keats ‘To Autumn’

Looked at in this way, it is no longer summer’s poor relation, but a period of joyous abundance. Though my garden is less colourful than before, there are still apples and pears to be picked, raspberries on their canes and a second wave of squashes flowering. My black kale is now large enough to crop and my giant sunflowers are growing apace. Across the land, there is a profusion of wild and cultivated crops. Hedgerows are laced with elderberries, blackberries and sloes. The last perfectly timed for making special Christmas gin.

Autumn crocus Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Celebrating autumn

Though autumn technically begins on 22 September with the autumn equinox, I like to think of it as beginning on the 1 September. Though few people decorate to celebrate autumn, I have always liked to – not least because it also marks the beginning of a school year and my students enjoyed the changing environment of my home classroom.

Though I have few students now and need to teach on-line, there is nothing to stop me creating my own autumn display and I encourage you to do the same. There is an abundance of beautiful foliage, seed heads and hardy fruits and vegetables that you can decorate with and of course, those rare, delightful autumn blooms.

Floral tribute to the season Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Bringing nature inside (whatever the season) invariably uplifts us. We do not need to have floristry skills to arrange a bouquet- only a vase. And if our display ends up like a primary school nature table, so what? I like those.

A dear friend in the States always honours every season with elaborate decorations (even when travelling with her job). What appeared, at first, as an adorable idiosyncracy has become a model for living. Making the effort to mark the season in and of itself makes it special. Selecting, picking and arranging flowers and objects makes us focus on their meaning. These little tableaus offer perfect life lessons that we absorb almost unconsciously – and the pleasure of our finished work brings us (and others) joy.

The dying leaf has a poignant beauty Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

I confess that I now follow her lead shamelessly and look forward to the challenge that each new display brings.

Quiet times

The occasional riotous assemblies of Halloween and Bonfire Night aside, autumn is a quiet time, ripe for reflection and contemplation. The gentle melancholy that accompanies the end of summer is more to be enjoyed than shunned. Just as a picture without shadow has no depth, so a year.

And I like the stillness of the season. We have no great expectations. We require nothing of autumn. If it gifts us with a balmy day, we greet it with gratitude. If we are given rain and drear skies, we try not to complain. Autumn helps teach us acceptance – and we are all the better for it.

Autumn’s rainbow Image: Chris Lawton on Unsplash

Apples and Puppy Training

The last week has passed in something of a blur. It has been dominated by two things: apples and puppy training. The apples, are reaching the end of their life cycle; Hermione is just beginning hers.

Under the apple tree. Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Apples, apples everywhere

The high winds we have been experiencing all week have certainly made apple picking easier. Instead of reaching up, I just reach down to the ground. We now have an absolute glut of fruit and despite my best efforts, the trug never diminishes.

But there is joy in plenty, not least because there is enough to share. Friends and neighbours have all been enjoying the fruits of my tree. And for those neighbours who are also keeping productive gardens, we get to swap our surplus for theirs.

My only sadness is that I can’t bake cake to share. That will have to wait till next year.

50 ways to cook your apples

I admit that I am exaggerating a little bit, but I have been learning all sorts of new ways to eat and preserve this most versatile fruit. So far, I’ve made apple vinegar, apple berry jam, apple rings, spiced apple compot, apples for the freezer, baked apples, apple puree (which is perfect for vegan baking) and my favourite so far: toffee apple fruit leather. I’ve been meaning to make fruit leather (fruit roll-ups) for years and now have finally done it. If you have surplus fruits, I highly recommend it. It’s perfect for little snacks. And if you have a brilliant apple recipe you’d like to share, please post it in the comments section.

How do you like your apples? Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Distractions

Of course, whilst doing all this, I’ve had a little helper. Well, helper might not be quite the right word. Companion would be more appropriate. Hermione is very happy to sit in the kitchen and watch, but needs numerous breaks to run about the garden and relieve herself.

So every forty minutes or so, my husband or I don our rain jackets and run outside. The apple tree serves a purpose here too, as Hermione loves to eat the fallen fruit – though sadly only the most rotten and revolting looking. The capacity of a dog’s stomach to consume the most disgusting food, never fails to amaze me. She neglects, of course, any of the more edible windfalls.

Who needs a ball when you can have an apple? Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Training

With her jabs complete, Hermione is now free to run wild in the garden. Her breed is naturally intelligent and requires a great deal of stimulation and challenge. Having mastered the art of sit, paw and recall within days, we thought we better add some more difficult tasks. So now our garden has become a sort of mini adventure playground. The gardening stool makes for an excellent ‘tunnel’ to run under or, when tipped upside down, to jump over. We have a raised path with steps that she rather alarmingly runs up and down and low wall from which she takes terrifying leaps.

Like children, she most enjoys toys that are not toys at all: an empty plastic bottle, a plastic flower pot, a stick and a hose attachment are all kept in the toy box outside. The advantage of this is that as soon as one of these is gnawed to pieces, another can be found. We are working on her retrieval skills (she is a bird dog after all) and she once managed to bring an apple. This dog might come in useful after all.

Hermione with her favourite toy: a rotating hose pipe attachment. Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Puppy lessons

While we have been teaching Hermione, she of course, has been teaching us. When you spend time outside with a child or a puppy, you realise that the world is an infinitely fascinating place. Every leaf, branch and insect is something to be explored and this sense of wonder is something that we should all nurture – not least if we are to have any hope of healing our damaged world.

The apple tree, to me, epitomises the generosity of nature. She gives and gives. The humble cooking apple may not be the most exotic of fruits, but with it I have been able to make endless treats that will remind us of summer even in the depth of winter. And I try not to take any for granted. My apples are hardly supermarket perfect, but a little effort on my end means that very few are wasted. It has taken a year for this fruit to be produced. Surely I can take a few minutes to remove a bruise or insect damage.

For me, living with wild things (and Hermione is certainly wild sometimes) helps ground me. Living as we do in the world of the mind or the cyber world of internet and social media, it is easy to become detached from what actually is.

In the virtual world, our desires are but a thought or a click away. In the real world, we need patience and hard work to get what we want. And paradoxically, it is the latter that brings a more lasting joy.

So, like a doting grandparent, I shall leave you with one last picture of Hermione with her new best friend – a snail.

Image: Karen Costello-McFeat

Morning has Broken

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing
Praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world
Eleanor Farjeon

Morning song

As a child, this was one of my favourite hymns, which I sang joyfully in assembly. The message was simple – mornings represented everything good. They were an opportunity for fresh starts and new adventures and I greeted them with excitement each day.

As I grew older, mornings became something that were met with dread: the teenage horror of getting up early for school; the six am feed when the baby had been awake all night; the crushing exhaustion as my MS insidiously shortened my days.

Now, I have returned to my childhood joy of greeting the morning. My sleep has been restored (I shall explain how in a later blog) and each day really is a blessing. So when I was up and enjoying my first mug of hot water and mindfully observing the garden in the sunshine, it was this song that came to mind.

Inspired by my favourite village, Alfriston, and the melody based on a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune ‘Bunessan’, it is perhaps not so surprising that it speaks to me.

Here’s the Cat Stevens’ version to get you into the mood.

A perfect celebration of the new day

Reclaim the light

It seems that mornings have fallen out of favour. After scrolling through three Google pages, expecting to find all sorts of fascinating facts and rituals based upon morning, I found only articles on the meaning and etymology of the word and the wonderfully droll comment, that ‘There is no ‘urban’ definition for morning because the type of people who speak ‘urban’ do not know what morning is.’

Out of the mouths of babes and urban dictionaries. As we’ve detached ourselves further and further from the natural cycles of day and night, the morning has become insignificant or an irritant to our busy man-made, artificially lit days.

It is time to reclaim the morning. It is, after all, the perfect moment to set our minds and bodies into balance. Grabbing a coffee and rushing to work does the opposite. We are wrong footed from the start and the subsequent hours are likely to be harried and stressful.

The solution is as simple as setting the alarm ten or fifteen minutes earlier and trying to keep to that schedule throughout the week – including weekends. I am not suggesting you get up at dawn (though I know some who do) but to ease yourself into rising at a slightly earlier hour. In doing so, we buy ourselves the most precious of commodities: time.

Since I have been getting up earlier, I have been able to indulge in quiet mindfulness. On Sunday morning, I sat for at least half an hour watching the garden come to life, listening to birdsong and the hum of bees in the lavender; watching the elegant duet of tiny butterflies in the marjoram and seeing the sleepy heads of the golden ragwort-like flowers gradually straighten and release their petals.

I do this each day and there are always blessings to be found. One day a giant dragonfly came and looped across the sky, another a long legged cricket hopped by my feet and today a tiny mouse was skittering across the back of the bench where I was sitting. Without stillness, without calm, such miracles will never be witnessed.

Okay, my field mouse wasn’t in a tulip – but just as cute! Image: Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Making the most of ‘free’ time

The extra time has also allowed me to do the exercises I need to optimise my health. The yoga and breathing takes about an hour, but this does not matter, because it is ‘free time’ stolen from time in bed. And the beauty of this virtuous circle is that this activity is the very thing that ensures my sleep is deep and nourishing.

Recently, the weather has been kind and there are few things more delightful than practising yoga on a dewy lawn. When I do the pose, ‘Salute the sun’, that is exactly what I am doing. When I lie back on my mat, I do not have to envisage being connected to the earth – I am, literally.

And since I am self-isolating, it also gives opportunities to go out. There are not many people about at seven-thirty in the morning and my husband and I have used this to our advantage to go for early morning sea swims. We usually have the beach to ourselves. We can relax and enjoy the experience thoroughly, since we do not have that background hum of anxiety to spoil it.

All the religious disciplines I know of call for an early start to the day, beginning with prayer. For some of you, that may well be the path you choose, for others our prayers can be more secular, a sense of gratitude for our continuing lives and the opportunity to begin again afresh. But whatever you do, I encourage you to see it as a ritual; an act full of meaning and significance. Then you really will enjoy the morning’s blessings.

The blackbird is speaking: enjoy his song.