All posts in Nature

Summer rolls on and each sunshiny day blurs itself into the next.  I love this time of year, where the relevance of the day and date is well, irrelevant.  Where clocks stop ticking and we have hours on end to potter.  Sometimes I will stand out in the yard and breathe deep, soaking up the stillness and ease of it all.  Summer fruits are picked before the birds arrive.  Window sills are overrun with ripening fruit and eaten as soon as they change colour.   The sun rises and the girl’s head outside where they fuss over the hens and play make-believe in the backyard. Bathers clutter the clothesline and I take simple delight in the fact that the sunshine makes fast work of clothes drying.  Housework is done more deliberately as the days seem longer and less chaotic. There is time to sit with a cup of tea, savour it and finish it, there is even time to make myself another if I like.

I’m spending lots of time dreaming of ways to ensure all of this can somehow merge more easily with days of routine and busy, for our worlds are soon to collide.

Hope your summer has been a lovely one.

Home 372: Outside – a gorgeous old outhouse (Vic)

The days seem longer during the school holidays.  With all of us home together for a few weeks we have written a mini list of things we wanted to do this break….together and for the first time in a while we decided to skip anything that is costly.

We’ve headed outdoors, packed a picnic lunch, walked instead of driven, shared experiences instead of objects and saved a small fortune in the process.

I’m amazed at how little our kiddies really need to keep themselves entertained and how simpler it is now that I have stepped back  and allowed them to construct their own fun.

We’ve let the washing pile up, the house get a little more unorganised and left the kitchen bench top to become swamped in paper work. Our bedtime routines have chopped and changed and the mornings are breezy as we slowly begin each day.

We ate our picnic lunch atop of this hill the other day, surrounded by the most amazing view.  We’ve walked board walks by the river and built rocks paths across flowing rivers.  We’ve run alongside the water cheering on bark boats as the race toward the river mouth.   I’m not sure I could have lasted with another week of crazy prior to the break.  I’m thankful we have been able to slow down, to feel the sand between our toes and the sun on our skin.

Do you have any penny saving ideas during the school holidays?  What inexpensive activities have your little ones enjoyed?

Have you been able to slow down a little?

 Home 348: Picnic – Wye River.