A moment of mindfulness

After a wonderfully busy weekend of having 2 lots of friends come to stay (6 children aged 6 and under between us!), and all the catering, chatting & eating that that entails, I decided to take 5 minutes on my own in the garden while the boys watched some telly with Daddy before bed.

"Mindfulness" seems to be the current catch-word, and something that I am really not very good at. I have got into the bad habit of permanently multi-tasking, and very rarely do I take the time or even think about taking the time to just stop and be fully aware of what's going on around me.

So I sat down on a garden chair outside and spent 5 minutes focusing on each of my senses:

Sound: birds singing, a wood-pigeon cooing, distant sound of road traffic, the faint sound of an aeroplane

Smell: freshly mowed grass (Mr W did the lawns once our friends had left), faint smell of BBQ coming from a neighbour's garden

Taste: lingering taste of a piece of lemon drizzle cake, yum!

Touch: the smooth rattan of our garden furniture, cool spikeyness of the freshly cut grass under my bare feet, the undulations of the baby wriggling in my tummy ( no longer kicks and punches, more like a giant snake trying to get out!)

Sight: wispy white clouds against a blue sky, birds flying overhead, the trail left by the distant aeroplane, a little wagtail looking for bugs in the grass, total stillness with not even a leaf or a blade of grass moving

Five minutes of mindfulness...lovely. 

I really must think to do it more often.

A perfect end to a lovely weekend.