Fields of Gold

It has been a very beautiful day, but I spent most of it inside trying to complete two projects. One was a small thing for a woman who was my parents' next door neighbour for over twenty five years - and that, at least, I got finished. Lola turns eighty this Sunday and while I won't be there to join in the celebrations (and there will be BIG celebrations!), I did want to get the little something that I had been working on to her daughter in time for her to bring it along. Well, it's on its way and fingers crossed it gets there in time.

The other project is a bit more complicated, but only because I chose to make it so. Off my own bat, I offered to put a book of images and words together for a friend about an experience we shared and that meant a lot to both of us, but life has kept getting in the way! I had said I would have it completed weeks ago, but as the deadline was my own, I let it slide... Now it's starting to get embarrassing that the darn thing isn't done! I finally feel I have the pictures sorted, but the words (which are normally easier for me) are proving harder to come by. This afternoon, especially, presented a text-book example of writers-block - not helped by the fact that the "y" key on m computer is defunct! So, it was a frazzled and frustrated me who grabbed the dog’s lead and opted for a walk to clear my head just as the afternoon gave way to evening and temperatures were at their most perfectly balmy.

The hillside nearest to us has been vividly green and then it was a sea of poppies and wild flowers, but now it is mostly parched and dying - but it is no less beautiful, if you take the time to look. I flopped down on a big boulder to mope and stare gloomily across the valley, but the whisper of the breeze through the grasses distracted me. There's something mesmeric and quintessentially soothing about air moving through dry grass and soon that - and the lazy hum of the evening insects - had lulled me into a near doze. Bob was off sniffing and scrabbling in the undergrowth and I let the late sun soak into my bones and the buzzes and hums and sighs of my surroundings drown out the cacophony in my head. There can be few better soothers of a troubled spirit than nature at its simplest and most profound. Peace comes when we take the time to discern it.

Photographing uncluttered tranquillity is less easy than experiencing it, but I hope this effort reflects some of the sense of calm and infinity there was on our withering hillside this evening. It certainly soothed my soul.

I still haven’t found the words…