Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
It is a very misty old day up here on Dartmoor.
The mist is so thick I can't even see up to the hillside.
I'm sheltering in a thicket of gorse bushes,
They're like thorn bushes,
And the bright yellow flowers are out,
Just giving a little reminder of what sunshine looks like in the middle of this mist.
And although it's not raining at the moment,
I'm just looking up at the branches of the gorse bush and there are heavy droplets of water waiting to fall to the ground,
Not from rain,
Just from the dampness of the air up here on Dartmoor.
And I'm actually reflecting on what happens sometimes when we get thwarted,
It's like the lessons that might appear from not being able to accomplish what we hope we might accomplish.
And today I'm nursing an injury,
I strained a muscle and exacerbated that strain yesterday doing the garden.
My plan had been to spend two days working in the garden,
We've got two days of respite from the rain and my garden desperately needs a little bit of work done on it.
But yesterday all that happened is that I exacerbated this strained injury and now today I'm feeling a little bit sorry for myself,
It's very painful and even walking is actually quite hard.
Instead of working on the garden as I had planned,
Today I sat down and I wrote and I've been meaning to write the introduction to the book that I'm publishing about my pilgrimage last year and I just found that today was the perfect time to do it.
I didn't fancy getting out,
I wasn't able to be very physical and it just seemed like it was the right time to do some writing.
I lit a candle and I spent probably about three hours writing a rough draft for the introduction.
And that seems to be what happens is I have an intention to go in one direction and then something else occurs and so rather than going in the direction I thought I was going in,
I turn up moving in a completely different direction.
But actually that there is still something to be gained from where I ended up.
It also reminds me as I look wider in life that when it comes to my parents,
My elderly parents,
There is a real gift even though I'm caring for my elderly parents.
The gift is this,
My dad had dementia and died 18 months ago but his dementia meant that we as a family,
The siblings,
Came together to really help look after him and that is now continuing with my mum who is elderly herself and together as siblings we get together and we ensure that she is looked after and we take in turns looking after her.
And I realised that although I wouldn't choose to have my dad have dementia,
I wouldn't choose that we have to look after my elderly mum because she's finding old age quite hard,
I wouldn't choose that for my parents but there is a gift in what's happened in so much as I feel this extraordinary loving bond to my siblings,
I'm one of four,
That we all pull together to help support my mum and before my dad died we all pulled together to support my dad as well.
And there's something really beautiful about that,
The realisation that although I might not have chosen this,
There is a gift here and that's the reflection for today.
Often life doesn't go in the direction we want it to go and we end up going down a side road or we're thwarted in what we intended to do and today is just a reflection that what is the gift in that,
What is the learning or the lesson in the direction that we go which wasn't our intended direction of travel,
What is the learning?
And my reflection is that you ask that of yourself too,
Things might not be going your way and yet there will be a lesson there,
There will be a gift,
What is that gift,
What is there for you to learn?
Let me know how you get on with that reflection,
I'd always love to hear from you,
If you can see that life might not be turning out the way you'd like but there is something for you in the direction of travel you're heading in,
Let me know and of course join me again tomorrow where I'll be back with another five minutes in nature.
