Less Ordinary

Over the last couple of months we’ve been in the midst of a Scottish summer.  For those of you who have never experienced such a thing, it means that we’ve had wind and rain almost every day with precious little sun.  I don’t know about you, but when the weather is like this I find myself sinking into a colour slump: that state in which you no longer really see colour around you, you become very serious and work-orientated and you forget to have fun.

Fashion-wise, you find yourself wearing almost all black: black tops, black shoes, black dresses, black boots… I think you get the picture!  No wonder I’ve been feeling uninspired of late; swathed in all that black, it’s hard to feel particularly creative, optimistic, effevescent, gregarious, vibrant, audacious.

But, you know, I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling this way, so I’ve put together a number of resources just in case you need some help adding that necessary splash of colour:

• Read this wonderful article by the always inspirational Tina Su at Think Simple Now: Train Your Eyes to See Color, Again
• Treat yourself to one of these beautiful books and fill it with colourful observations, quotes and poems: A Yen For Paper
• Watch The Wizard of Oz - that part where Dorothy opens the door of her windswept Kansas home and steps into the technicolor glory that is the Land of Oz is just so good for the soul.
• Check out this Rainbow Flickr Group.
• Subscribe to this blog and join the Redvolution: Spiritual Cowgirl
• Follow Gala’s advice and reintroduce colour into your wardrobe: Fashion Help for Recovering Goths
• Visit a garden centre and take loads of close-up flower shots using the macro setting on your camera: Garden Centre Blooms
• Cut up some old magazines and make a colour collage: Arty Life’s Collage Book
• Eat a rainbow: Color Guide to Staying Healthy and Eating Right
• Get out your felt tip pens and take a trip to Planet Sark.

How do you inject colour into a grey dreich day?  What’s your favourite colour and what effect does it have on you?  Do you have a signature colour that you like to wear or decorate with?

Last Friday I took a rare break from writing the thesis, and headed through to Edinburgh.  As the sun was getting ready to set, we went for a walk out at Musselburgh Race Course.  It was the perfect antidote to the mounting stress of deadlines, footnotes and word counts.  Even just thinking back to it, I can feel the tension leaving my stiff knotted shoulders.  Here are a few shots from that evening, and while you look at them take a deep breath with me and release all those worries and cares… for a short while at least…

How do you relax when you’re strung out and stressed out?  All tips welcome!

Dear Readers,

Just wanted to let you all in on why you’ve seen a decrease in the number of posts published recently - I, like the squirrel in the pic, have been keeping my head down.  However, while he seems to be busy eating, I have been busy writing.  I’m in the end stages of my phd which I’ve been working on now for almost 4 years, so needless to say, this has to be my priority at the moment.  As soon as the thesis has been licked into shape, I’ll be back blogging up a storm.  To make sure you’re kept in the loop, subscribe to my feed, and you won’t miss a thing.

Thanks to you all for your continued support - all of you who take the time to read, comment, stumble, link to etc. really do make my blog a place where I just love to come and spend time.  I’m really missing hanging out with you all here!

Big kisses to you all

Amy

xx

PS For a Less Ordinary desktop, head over to The Calm Space where you can download an image that I’ve contributed there for this month’s theme of Simplicity to decorate your screen.  Enjoy!

At the moment the Edinburgh International Film Festival is on, so there’s always stuff going on in and around the Filmhouse on Lothian Rd.  When we walked passed there on the weekend, we noticed that there was a big panel set up with the most wonderfully vibrant graffiti art all over it.  My youngest son was just enchanted by it, and so we left off what we were doing and walked over to it.  I took a couple of photos, and then passed the camera over to my son so he could take a few of his own:

(The 1st shot is mine, while the rest show what my wee boy saw through the lens)

After taking our time to enjoy the art, we then left to pick up my other 2 kids.  To get back to the car, however, we had to walk passed the spot where the panel was, and we were surprised to see that it had all been dismantled already and there were a few guys in the process of packing it into the back of a van.  A true lesson in impermanence, perhaps, but also a lesson in carpe diem - sieze the day.

Don’t let the moment pass you by - grab it, experience it, enjoy it, share it and then move on to the next.

Life is full of moments - have more of them.

This tree growing in the rockery area of Edinburgh’s Botanical Gardens has long fascinated me.  I took this shot of it last weekend, but I don’t really think it’s looked any different in all the time I’ve known it, and that’s over a period of 20 years.

For some reason, it’s always reminded me of the tale of Rip Van Winkle, the man who lay down for a nap and then slept a hundred years.  I think this tree with its limblike roots resembles a slumbering figure - one who has spent so long in the land of nod that he has begun to take on the qualities of a tree, and who has become rooted to the spot.

I suppose in some ways I identify with this arborescent creature - my own roots run deep in this earth and I can spread my branches all the higher and wider because of it.  Over the two decades that I’ve known this tree, I have changed a lot, my life has taken many twists and turns, people have entered and left my life enriching it during our short acquaintance, and I’ve even moved around from house to house, whilst always remaining in the country where I know I belong.

It is my sense of and for place that binds me to my roots, and I am strengthened and nourished by that sense, by my embeddedness in my spiritual home.

Where do you most strongly feel your sense of place?  Do you feel more energised when you visit certain places, or are have you found the place which nourishes your soul and are living there permanently?  How do you express your love for your spiritual home?