After the luxurious month of July when Devon welcomed us to our new home with a spell of extravagantly hot weather, a holiday on Lundy, and a couple of weeks relaxing with a friend, August saw our new lives gather momentum and September has hit us at full-pelt. It has been hard to find the…
Category: Reflections
Small Things
This week I have been struggling with something that really gets me down. It leaves me in a dark place at times, and yet, even there, there are always the small things. Always a cup of tea made by a friend, always the sunlight on the floor, always the jokes of children and the fulfillment…
Home: The Dining Table
Reading Under the Tuscan Sun the other day, I came upon a paragraph I could really relate to. In it, Frances Mayes describes the acquisition of a long yellow dining table for their summer home in Italy… The long stretch of summer calls for a long tavola. Now that the kitchen is finished, we need…
3 Posts that have made a difference to my week
Flowers in the desert + a Recipe for a Better day + How to be Empathetic = 3 posts that have made a difference to my week 🙂 These pictures of the desert covered in flowers, which I found via Ann Voskamp’s website, feel like a metaphor for how I see my life right now. I’ve…
There for the taking
The other night I had a very clear dream, in which I held a new baby. It made waking up a very painful experience – and living another day without the child I dream of rather sad. It was one of those days when songs on the radio seemed to echo my thoughts and my…
Way of Peace: The Small Things
I recently started a post series called ‘Way of Peace’, which I really hope people will enjoy reading as much as I’m enjoying thinking and writing about it. I started by posting about the Lord’s Prayer – I find that saying it helps me to put my trust in God, which in turn has the power to bring…
Hope in Syria :-)
You only have to do a Google Images search on Syria to get a glimpse of the horrors of the conflict there. The screen fills with pictures of violence, sorrow, fear and hate. It is easy for us to turn away from these images, not wanting to acknowledge there is such sadness in the world….
Way of Peace 1
I have the feeling that all of us are searching for a bit of peace in life. Peace of mind, peace of heart, serenity to take with us through the day. So I’ve decided to write a series of posts on it. Some of them will be really short – just little quotes that I…
Life Lately
I’ve been outside a lot lately. The sun has done me good, and I can’t get enough of the life that’s tumbling out everywhere: everywhere green, everywhere dappled light, everywhere colours and pollen… I love how, at this time of year, every view is glimpsed through a window of green, how I can sit at my…
Changes
Last week I was able to share with my church and youth groups something that has been very much on my mind over the last few months. After what will be about four years in my job, Andrew and I have decided to move back to our home county of North Devon. We are really looking forward…
A Lesson on Small Things from Ann Voskamp
“Do not disdain the small… Give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.” Do you ever have those moments where you read something and the words jump off the page at you, as if they were written just for you? I’ve been getting that a lot lately. Ann Voskamp’s book, One…
Recipes – Dorset Apple Cake
So far I’ve steered clear of posting recipes on this site, I suppose because I felt it would veer away from what I saw as my blog’s main focus: perspectives on life and what it’s all about. However, more and more, I am seeing the sharing of food as integral to well-lived lives, across all kinds of…
Life Lived 