Here comes the sun...

This morning I went back up my mountain for the first time in nearly a year.  

I feel triumphant!  Like my post baby body is beginning it's true rehabilitation.  But not just that, it is symbolic of the new season.  Anyone who reads me here knows how I find walking to be ever so important in maintaining my own mental and physical health (especially the mental)!  

How can one think clearly? or pray openly, or keep account of those unreliable feelings without making time to be alone? and to be out of doors where ceilings and walls cannot bind us to inward thinking.  Where the sun touches the top of your head, and the ground under foot, awakens your step, and your bones...

I am so happy to be once again inhabiting the mountains where I feel so belonged - taking in the morning air, and being greeted 'Good morning' by a stranger and fellow hill walker, who will never know how he encouraged me when he said quietly as he walked by me; 'Welcome back'.

Welcome back.  Indeed.

Shell xx

Morning, on the Round Hill...

It is said that my husband's grandfather and grandmother would walk together on Round Hill while they were courting. It is also said that they fell in love there...

I fall in love there every time I go. With the misty mornings at such a latitude. Able to see a flock of hot air balloons taking off for an early Autumn morning float. I happened upon these the other morning, I was unprepared without my Nikon, but my iPhone was able to capture some of what I saw... {note: tiny specks = hot air balloons without a zoom lens}

My feet were wet, and dyed crimson by my shoes by the time I got home!

And what better way to start a day!

Shell xx

Sunday Soul...

I've been utterly affected by an episode of Spectacle: Elvis Costello With...  which was on ABC2 t'other night, featuring (his wife) Diana Krall, and (my favourite) Elton John.

I've been thinking about singing some jazz...  Figure I have the right tools:  Deep woman's voice, and a tuned piano...  But I've got to develop the most important ingredient:  Soul.

I'm loving it.

In other news, I wrote a Joni Mitchell/Bob Dylan type little songy thing this morning after breakfast.  (I love writing songs in the morning, they are different to the ones you write late at night somehow...)

V1. I’ve taken time to think about it,

I’ve taken time to be a woman,

In my own right,

To listen to the moments, watch them ticking by-

I’ve asked all the big questions,

Like why am I not the hero in my own life?

& what’s the end of the book like?

Chorus:

But this world is, fading away,

And your own life, Isn’t your own life-

Unless you give it away,

I want to give it away, in my own kind-

Of fallen way.

V2. It’s just time to face the mountain,

And know that I can’t put it off any longer,

To go see the sun rise -

go drink the warmth of His eyes…

I wanna paint you a picture and a photograph,

I wanna get the window seat and see, 

where you can’t see, where the sky ends -

And the ocean begins.

Chorus.

And you say it’s your world,

But I say it’s fading away,

And your own life, isn’t your own life,

Unless you give it away,

Watch me give away, 

In my own kind, of fallen way...

Songsmithingly Yours,

Shell xx

Feeling Quiet...

And home bound.

Long, hot breakfast...

Plans for baking a cake, reading a book, writing a song...

Waiting for love to come home.

Shell xx

Good morning

Anybody who reads me regularly, knows, I am the biggest fan of mornings.

Especially, Sunday mornings.

When you sit, and eat toast, and absorb tea slowly, and lovingly into your bloodstream...

I try to do everything a little more slowly and lovingly on a Sunday morning.

Shell xx