I decided to take my camera out with me whilst walking yesterday, for no reason other than that it makes me happy. Fiddling around with depth of field, exposure, continuous shooting- all the things that only a year ago I didn’t reeeaaallly know how to use to my advantage- it’s the best! Sometimes the happy accidents are what make the best photos- like the blades of grass blurring out the bottom right hand of the above photo. I’m grateful to those blades of grass, because they create the kind of snazzy effect I would otherwise have had to get Jason to create for me in Photoshop ;)

But hey! This isn’t a post about photography, it’s really just a post about the lovely walk Teddy and I took yesterday morning. These little woods that we walk in are probably my favourite place around here to walk. They seem to change constantly. There’s not a day I visit them where I don’t notice some new carpet of ferns or flowers or moss on the forest floor, or find that a path that only a week ago was an easy one to walk along has become completely overgrown and impassable. That’s kind of what I love about them though, even though some days walking through cobweb after cobweb is pretty stressful. The bluebell carpet right in the middle of the woods died back weeks ago and was taken over by huge, shoulder-high ferns, which then were in turn beaten out by even taller foxgloves. Now the forest feels hot, and verdant, and like it’s right at its peak before it begins its slow fall back into the beautiful richness of autumn.

^^ That little butt. It melts my heart. I think these woods are Teddy’s favourite place to walk, too. He gets more excited when we arrive here than any other place we walk in, and always seems to be on the scent of something when we’re there. Usually pigeon or squirrels, but I guess maybe deer too. We do see lots of deer there. ^^

We did our usual route yesterday morning (minus the little loop I’ve had to cut out from our walk recently, because the path had become SO cobwebby it was giving me nightmares), and walked for about an hour or so. I try really hard not to look at my phone when I’m out walking, or else Teddy winds up running around my legs like a loon whilst I stand still, distracted, trying to download emails on patchy 3G signal. It’s all part of this ‘switching off’ thing I’ve been trying recently, where I spend a little less time each day plugged into a screen, and try not to allow myself to be distracted by my phone quite so much!

Recently I’ve found that there’s been a slight imbalance in the way I spend my time, and I’ve been feeling a little wrung out. Usually I quite like being tired, in a funny sort of way. Back when I was younger and was dancing, I used to relish the way my body felt after a particularly exhausting dance class, where everything would ache and groan and I used to stagger back home with this weird John Wayne-style gait. I quite like the feeling of being exhausted come bedtime each evening, even when there’s a pile of washing up to do and another half hour of work to get finished before I can hit the hay. Weirdly those moments make me feel sort of…alive. I don’t know how else to put it other than like that! I guess it’s a hard feeling to describe, but it’s one I kind of like.

But lately it’s been a different kind of tiredness, the type where your head feels foggy and you drop things all the time because your coordination’s off, and you feel drained, as opposed to just plain old tired. I think it’s partly down to last year having been my first year of full-time work after years of academic timetables (god bless those endless school holidays, hey?), to me running my own little business and finding it so hard to switch off from it all at the end of the day, and to also being really really crappy at knowing when to say ‘enough is enough’ and take some actual holiday!

I’d love to know- did you find this during your first year at work after university/college/school? That it was kind of a shock to the system? I’d love to hear too from those of you who run your own businesses- do you have a technique for switching off your mind at the end of the day and at the weekends?

So, the resolution that I came to during this happy walk, was that it’s probably time to take a few days off in the new couple of weeks! And I mean proper time off, too. Not the kind of faux time off I usually take, where I still check emails and faff about endlessly on Pinterest and wind up blogging anyway because I really do love it so much! I think it’s a good resolution to have made :)

Aside from all this detailed introspection, Teddy and I spent the rest of the walk soaking in the early morning sunshine, climbing up piles of stacked logs, and jumping right back off again. It was a good one! Then we headed home, I exchanged wellies for flip flops, and Ted flaked out on the living room floor for several hours.

Previous visits to these beautiful woods documented here (in frost), here (in early spring), and here (just one lone photo of this year’s incredible bluebell carpet).

** Chambray shirt is a new favourite from GAP, navy blue shorts are old ones from Hollister, & Hunters are Hunters!