Photos from ‘Why I Love Months’

For the past year I’ve been taking a photo from the same place once a month, and posting those photos in my ‘Why I Love Months’ posts. I realise now that I didn’t chose the best place, it was tricky to get to in winter, it wasn’t the most exciting view, it only worked if the light was at the right angle, and I should have at least had some reliable way of making sure the photo was actually the same each month, because I ended up with a lot of variation in terms of direction, zoom, and how far up the hill I could be bothered to climb. Nevertheless, I thought it was worth having all 12 photos put together, to (vaguely) show how it changed throughout the year, October-September.

Summer in Yorkshire

I live in a village in Yorkshire (North England). Admittedly we don’t tend to get much summer here. But when we do, it is beautiful. These are some photographs I’ve taken around my house over the past three summers. While looking at them I would recommend listening to this beautiful song by The Saw Doctors.

I know there are a lot of photos here, I just couldn’t narrow it down. If you enjoyed this then please like it, because I love taking photographs and want to share them, but only if people will be interested in that. Have a nice day 🙂

Here comes the sun…

Yesterday morning I had some things to do in the tiny town I live near, and I was going to be walking to save on bus money and get a bit of exercise, so I’d got dressed, had breakfast, was all ready to go. I decided not to take a jacket because non would go with my top, and it looked a bit sunny, so I grabbed my sunglasses at the last minute and left. And it was boiling. Well ok, maybe not quite, but too hot to be walking in black skinny jeans.
I don’t cope very well in heat, I have pale skin which burns easily and I often find it too hot, but yesterday, aside from slight discomfort, it felt perfect to be out in the summer sun.

I bought some new sunglasses a couple of months ago, mine had got quite scratched. When choosing them I didn’t really look at how they looked on me, I’m rubbish at fashion stuff. I went off two things, the price (playing into the Northerner cheapness stereotype), and what it was like to look through them. I generally prefer sunglasses with an orangey-pinky tint to them, and wearing my new ones yesterday did not disappoint. I’m sure everything would have looked beautiful in the sunlight anyway, but they just brought out such wonderful colours. There’s more of a contrast through sunglasses, the line between the land and the sky; the dry-stone-walls cutting across the fields; the bright foxgloves and buttercups but the roadside. It took my breath away, and I wish I’d thought to take some photos through the glasses (I’ve done that before with a sunset, it actually works as a filter).

I love all the telegraph poles and wires stretching out across the sky, dissecting the wisps of cloud in the otherwise perfectly blue sky. (I know they’re actually telephone and electricity, but there’s something nice about the phrase telegraph pole). Delicate white butterflies and tiny birds fluttered past me, and it doesn’t even matter that I don’t know the names of the different varieties, you don’t need labels to appreciate beauty.

I smiled and greeted all the strangers I passed in the sunshine; getting the same response lifts my heart, but I just forget about those who ignore me. It really is something to feel the warm touch of the sun on your skin after a long winter, knowing that summer is truly here, even if it only lasts for a day or two.

I hope where ever you are you’re enjoying the weather you have – let me know in the comments what it’s like where you are 🙂

Morning

I really struggle to wake up in the morning. I don’t tend to go to bed too late, but not very early either, and I often don’t sleep very well. And while I know many people have earlier starts than me, this term I have been struggling with getting up before 7 five days a week, and 8 am starts most Saturdays and Sundays.But once I’ve forced myself out of bed and got out the house – usually managing to fit in breakfast – there’s something I really love about mornings.

For the past few weeks sunrise here has been around 7:30; the time I’m leaving to get the bus. And I often have to wait a few minutes at the bus stop, so on some of the particularly beautiful mornings I’ve been taking some quick photos, which I thought I’d share.There have been some horribly dark, rainy mornings, but time and again I am struck by the astounding beauty of the colours, and shapes of clouds, and how much the same view can change from day to day. It give me a peaceful, fulfilling start to the day and makes the early start worthwhile. This morning I saw even more stunning skies whilst on the bus journey. Unfortunately taking photos out of the window doesn’t work, but it still filled me with indescribable joy. It may have distracted me from my German vocab learning; if it had been a plain sky I may have remembered in this afternoon’s test that an-passen means to adapt, but nonetheless it got my day off to a good start.

The Joy of Life

Do you ever think how wonderful and beautiful and amazing the world is, and feel like you could just burst with happiness at it all? Because that’s how I feel when I hear a truly amazing piece of music for the first time, find an unexpectedly great book or film, funny lessons, laughing with friends, seeing people smiling.
But most of all I’ve recently been noticing this when I’m out in nature. I’m sat in my room and just feel a need to be outside. I have a little walk I always do, out through some fields and woods behind my house. It’s beautiful countryside, and it’s been lovely with the hot weather lately, but even when it isn’t sunny I love being outside. I keep being out there and being filled with joy, so much so that I can’t contain it all, I feel it should be pysically possible to scoop up the extra happiness and save it for later or give it to someone else because I can’t cope with so much all at once. I end up acting like I’m in a cheesy musical, skipping through the grass, throughing my arms out and looking to the sky, spinning around, making strange noises like a cross between a laugh and cry.
I have been through some fairly terrible things over the past years, the worst thing ever to happen to me was over a year and a half ago, and while I’ll never fully get over it, I feel like I’ve reached the other side.
These things which make me so happy I can’t stop smiling aren’t big things, just the many tiny wonders of life. Maybe it’s because I have experianced such intense sadness that I can feel intense happiness, and really appreciate the little things, but I hope that anyone can be this happy with the right mindset.
So get outside, notice the little things that make you smile, and love life. It’s all we have.

Happiness often sneaks in through a door we didn’t know we’d left open.