The Foundations of Doing Well

I have learned that to do anything well I need to be active, and I must be attentive to how I drink, eat and sleep. If I fail to care for any one of these my competence is impaired, my achievements, reduced.

If I am not active enough (physically, intellectually, and emotionally), if I fail to drink, eat and sleep enough, I perform poorly. If I am too active, if I eat, drink and sleep too much, I perform poorly.

To know what activity, nourishment and rest I require, I need only pause and listen.

Thunder

I wake at two in the morning to a great blast of sound through my open window that splits the sky. Thunder is too tame a word as it roars, tears, and splinters the dense dark night. Its fierce untameable force buckles the air towards the west. Rain draws its breath before it spits king-sized drops, then spills itself, full thrust. The fork of light, too bright, bare, wild hair cuts the air. The travelling crack and howl rumbles far further than I can tell. Before its final fade, a burst of blinding white returns. I love a storm...

Watering The Hedge

In a dry spell I water the young hornbeam hedge that lines the boundary of our back garden.

Light dances as drops fall from the deep-veined light-green leaves and the thick spray of water patters then gathers on the soil beneath. I look down and as I do, birds sing above me on the branches of a damson tree. Bees buzz. The scent of earth fills my breath. Here with nature, the trivial clamour of human squabble subsides.