A different kind of autumn ordinary #oneweek

I have mentioned a few times before that i tend to like to go for a jog now and again. I nearly always go in the morning as it is a time when i can spare some time! Its also a really handy way to walk the dog at the same time. He isn’t crazy about it. I think he tends to hide in his bed when he hears me come down the stairs in the morning. But as the morning dog walk is up to me then if i can get it out of the way before the school run..well its always good to have one less thing to worry about.

When it starts to get darker in the mornings though I tend to wait till the light is up a little bit which gives me a smaller window of time to go. Im just not crazy about heading out in the dark! So i like to head out, i dont go far, or fast and lately because of the light i do have less time but it is still so important for me to go. Sometimes its just 30 minutes but its like gold to me.

I listen to some tunes and sometimes just stare hard ahead and other times search the depths of my thoughts. Hearing the sounds of the world waking and my own heart beating along with it. There is something meaningful to me that in part I actually can’t explain.

Sometimes i cross paths with others who are out doing the same thing. There is a funny sort of kinship between early morning joggers. A slight acknowledgement is usually all that is needed but its there, the feeling of being part of the opening of a new day.

This past week the weather has been better than usual for me in the morning and my ordinary jog turned into a discovery of how fantastic the autumn can look in the beautiful autumn sunshine. The sun can just lift my spirits. I really love the sun. Seeing it bouncing around the yellows and reds of autumn is incredible.

This is a very ordinary part of my day and i guess walking/jogging with the dog may not seem like much. But, to me, these tiny moments of time are really significant to me. Its my headspace.

It is extra special when there is an incredible accompaniment to marvel at on the way. 🙂

Motivational Mondaythe ordinary moments

one week

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Summer Maize #oneweek

Late to the party again…but sliding in hopefully before midnight with a combination post covering every linky i can!

Yes?

Yes…*fans face*

My lovely friend Older mum is running her one week posts this week and i thought what a good way to get some of my summer memories up all in one go. Ive done a few before you can check out some of them here and here. So here we are with one of my little set of images i took on our recent holiday to France. We went from the North West of the UK to the Western coast of France with one car, a trailer, 4 bikes, 2 bike seats, 2 sandcrabs, 5 children and 2 adults (with the occasional loss of sanity). I could lament about the craziness of travelling long distances with kids but i recently read a blog that does it so much better. Read it and you know pretty much exactly how we felt.

So after our ‘trip’

We arrived in the beautiful Vendee region of France and the sun was shining. Which is BIG for me. I need the sun. Like properly need. 🙂

Once we got through the stress of set-up and thats A LOT of stress. Our rule..is any negativity on the first day of holiday is to be discarded and let go…its the set up stress.

Then we started to take in where we were….

one thing i noticed..

Maize.

Yes. Maize.

Lots of it. Everywhere and it was SO incredibly tall. High as an elephant’s eye 😉

Knowing that Maize is obviously grown in this country and thinking i just be overwhelmingly unobservant of UK agriculture to have not noticed this jumbo sized crop before I actually went and took some pictures of it. It really does go for miles and miles and I could stand under it and shoot up in to the leaves.

Incredible.

And since returning we have noticed some british maize and it is nowhere near as tall as French Maize. So it must be the weather, or the soil, or the general Frenchness..I don’t know. But it is a lOT bigger over there and…

e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e

 

one week

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Winter #oneweek

“once a snowflake fell
on my brow and i loved
it so much and i kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
and brothers and a web
of snow engulfed me then
i reached to love them all
and i squeezed them and they became
a spring rain and i stood perfectly
still and was a flower”

 

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talking of holidays…winter snow fun! #oneweek

This week i am linking in with the very lovely older mum in a muddle and her #oneweek meme. I have also done her link in the summer and the autumn. Its great to focus on some good and great parts of the season. I really enjoy it. After yesterday and my moaning about the weather..i thought i would focus on some nice aspects of the winter and the things that i love about it.

I think one of the first things my OH and i spoke about when we met in a little wine bar all those years ago was a mutual love of the mountains and snowsports. Our views have divided somewhat into him being a wild, and gnarly ‘ill snowboard all day and ride the hardest slopes till i collapse in a heap’ type and me more of a ‘ill have a little morning jaunt to the slopes and then relax in my chalet in front of the fire’  🙂 I guess when we were in the very little baby stage we never really thought it would be possible to take the kids but then…

The first time we ever thought that skiing could be a family holiday was one snowy day on a hill just outside of the town. It was just after christmas and there was a couple of snow days.

We had missed the opportunity to buy a sledge and every.single.one for sale in the city had gone and we had some very disappointed kids on our hands. We learned that bin lids don’t slide well, neither do bin liners, plastic bags, trays or old bits of wood. Wrecking our brains we suddenly remembered our snowboards lying dormant in the loft since our honeymoon. We got them out, took off the bindings and sat the kids on them and watched the fun unfold. You know even a loftballed, unwaxed snowboard goes way faster than any sledge! They were a hit!

The OH and i exchanged a look ‘they are ready!’

So we embarked on what was the first of our two skiing holidays to France.  The kids LOVED it. They picked it up so quickly it was enviable really and are still very proud of their e’cole du ski badges. We havent managed to go this year or last. Skiing holidays are so expensive and actually for a holiday for such a large family that are not on a super duper high roller budget it can be a struggle.

It worked well for us too as my OH got to have a gnarly off-piste day with a pro-snowboarder and i got my sun and mountains..and dusted off the snowboarding legs again. Just a little bit mind 😉

Its all good. Snow + Sun + Mountains + Apres Ski = a great way to enjoy the winter!!

 

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Facebook…

I used to be a real fan of facebook. Really..i was.

I remember first being told about it by a friend and he was explaining how his sister in America used it a lot and it was this new big thing. I remember logging on (on dial up..which takes some patience!) and not being able to understand why it would ever be useful. I think i logged on, got an account and then promptly forgot about it…

Then dawned the age of the iphone and for me this opened up a whole world of possible surfing opportunities and in a moment of mild interest i loaded the facebook app from itunes and then facebook became part of my daily catching up, finding friends from years ago, seeing kids grow up and change, finding out news and of course that delightful past time of rolling your eyes at how wonderful everybody’s day, holiday, family, car, weekend etc are…yeah yeah don’t go on there after you have had a wet week camping in Devon you are going to depress the C**P out of yourself flicking through the 200 pictures posted by someone you vaguely know of all their inclusive, sun soaked, smiley, happy, sangria holiday. 😉

Anyhoo…Recently i added a business type page for my photography and it has been amazing for referrals and a quick way of communicating with my clients.

Then things started to change and i heard scary stories about photos loaded to FB being the property of FB, entire pages just disappearing without a mention. More recently there seems to be much more control over what you actually see in your news feed. The OH and i have had many conversations along the lines of..

‘hey did you see X’s photos of his kids?’ –

‘er…no’ and then i discover that, that person’s updates are not featuring in my newsfeed AT ALL despite being a friend of mine and you know a proper friend not someone who you vaguely know. 😉

This has been happening more and more. I see less of actual updates and more and more of company promotion.

Now it appears that if FB think you are newsworthy enough then you will feature in newsfeeds……nice… so companies that rely on reaching their clients via fb are now finding that they are only reaching (in some cases) as little as 10% of their followers because fb is not deeming their news worthy enough to go into all their followers newsfeed.

The newest development? The option to ‘promote’ your posts which means that you can pay for your posts to be in other people’s newsfeeds. Click on it and facebook will cheerfully ask you for your paypal details and off you go. *shakes head*  you would think that promoted posts would only be from people that you are friends with or pages you like. Not so…i keep getting promoted posts from facebook accounts that i have never had anything to do with..

I remember reading something about  Mark Zuckerberg saying facebook would always be free…hmmmm..guess that changes when you have shareholders to satisfy now eh?

twitter anyone?

🙂

one week

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