Home #4: Recuperation.

This week is proving to be incredibly busy and I've been doing a huge amount of overtime (unpaid but hopefully worth it). In addition, my personal life has once again been rather turbulent over the last few days. Walking my dog has been a good break from work, but has done nothing for stopping my head spinning with thoughts about my personal life, and when I get back to work, my thoughts interrupt my work too, dragging it out and increasing my stress!

I felt completely uninspired to take a picture today. I couldn't think of anything that would make a good picture, whether to do with our theme or not. All I could think of was my work and my soap-opera life. But after a few minutes, I stepped outside and remembered about this little window, which I've always thought looks really charming. I also love the pot, which I got a while ago from a bric-a-brac market, and the flowers, which I finally bought recently from another market to fill the pot.

It was only after I'd spent about 10 minutes experimenting with my camera settings, shooting, trying again, shooting, and eventually getting a picture I really liked, that I realised that this was the first time in 24 hours that I'd really switched off from all my thoughts. A 10 minute break of just taking a photo left me more rested than several hours' sleep, a chat with my mum, time wasted on Facebook, or a dog walk. This was a really significant realisation for me and made me wonder what I'm doing in my day-job when using the artistic side of my brain is so good for my mental health!