What an incredible, incredible weekend we have experienced here in Guernsey - well I guess it is subjective, but I have definitely had an incredible weekend.
It is not every weekend that the weather is so bright, sunny and warm, and the tides so high in the morning and evening, making for a wonderful opportunity to truly enjoy Guernsey at its best and get down to the beach!
I am greenhouse and cat sitting at the moment so am based down on the West coast, which I absolutely love because you can hear and smell the sea from the house and although it is only an 8 minute drive from where I currently live in the middle of the Island, I do feel like I am not only getting away from it all, but also coming "home"!!
Saturday morning was spent in the greenhouse, I just lost all track of time and while it was stupidly hot - I can totally understand why you hear of ladies wearing their bikinis when they used to work in the greenhouses in the height of the horticultural industry - I just lost all track of time. My grandfather was a tomato grower and my uncle a rose grower and now my parents grow, so I guess growing is in the blood somehow. Regardless, I got right into it and ended up weeding, picking and watering.
In fact the picking is actually the most time consuming part at the moment as there is simply so much to pick! The Mirabelle, nectarine and plum trees are laden with fruit, all ripening at the same time, and the runner beans are going slightly mad and there is tons of curly kale and even the peas, aubergines, courgettes and tomatoes are making a go of it too! So I ended up putting a lot of it in the stall at the bottom of the drive for general sale.
I have to say it is great around here at Vazon and especially along our road as you can buy all manner of organic vegetables and of course my Mum's fruit, so you don't really need to buy any fruits or vegetables from the shop at the moment, which is brilliant. Not only that but it is fresh here too, and full of all that wondering prana so it makes you feel so much better.
I was reminded about this the other day while reading one of Thich Nhat Hanh's books about anger and the Buddhist wisdom of cooling the flames. He is an incredible man and I love how he writes about "we are what we eat"...
"Eating is an aspect of civilisation. The way we grow our food, the kind of food we eat, and the way we eat it has much to do with civilisation because choices we make can bring about peace and relieve suffering...the food that we eat can play a very important role in our anger. Our food may contain anger. When we eat the flesh of an animal with mad cow disease, anger is there in the meat. But we must also look at the other kinds of food that we eat. When we eat an egg or a chicken, we know that the egg or the chicken can also contain a lot of anger. We are eating anger, and therefore we express anger...
...So be aware. Be careful what you eat. If you eat anger, you will become and express anger. If you eat despair, you will express despair. If you eat frustration, you will express frustration. We have to eat happy eggs from happy chickens. We have to drink milk that does not come from angry cows. We should drink organic milk that comes from cows that are raised naturally. We have to make an effort to support farmers to raise these animals in a more humane way. We also have to buy vegetables that are grown organically. It is more expensive, but to compensate, we can eat less. We can learn to eat less".
And it is so true. Not only should we consider where our food comes from, but how it has been treated. Plus of course how it is cooked. This is what i love about the whole Hari Krishna set-up, the whole concept of preparing food with love, of chanting while preparing food to raise the energy within the preparer and indeed the room and in fact imbuing it with the energy of love so that you eat that energy and feel better as a result.
Everything we eat has some form of vibration to it and the fresher the higher the vibration and the more healing and better for us. This is one of the reasons I love eating from the tree or plant, it doesn't get any fresher or more energised than that and the fact that my Mum and Dad grow organically and with love - my Mum talks to her plants and even uses Reiki on them sometimes too - means that they are so much tastier than anything else I have ever tasted! Ok so I am biased, but come and try some for yourself - Mum even sells them really cheaply too, it’s her bit for increased peace in the world!!!!
The afternoon was spent practicing Yoga in the garden and helping E with some chores before going down to Vazon for an hour at tea time to enjoy sitting in the sunshine under the wall and swimming in the sea. I just love it down there when the sun is shining and the tide is rising and everyone seems so happy!! In the evening we cycled all the way along the West coast cycle paths from Vazon to L'Ancresse to join a friend's 40th birthday celebrations.
If you live on, or visit Guernsey, then I can highly recommend this bike ride, in the early evening when the sun is going down and the tide is high. My gosh, it is stunning. It is times like this that I am not only o happy to be alive, but so happy to be living in Guernsey. I can't think of any other place in the world I have travelled where I would rather be on days like this. Thank you angels, I guess my karma can't be so bad to have been born here (I doubt I will be saying that in the middle of winter however!!).
Today has been pretty cool too. After watering the garden, E and I managed a quick dip at Vazon before catching the boat to Herm to meet E's Mum who had been playing the organ in the lovely little church over there. She treated us to lunch in the sun at the Ship - thank you V - before I topped up my crystal collection in the shop over there (this is the cheapest place I have ever come across to buy crystals and the shop next door has some wonderful crystal jewellery and angel related paraphernalia) before we went for a walk.
We stopped in at the church on our way to the beach. It is really rather wonderful in there. I seem to think it has been around since the 13th century (although don’t quote me on that) and if you put your hands to the stones inside you can certainly feel the heightened energy in that room. I love doing this, not only can it can tell you a lot about a place but I have no doubt that if the room has a high vibration and you put your hands to it, then you receive a healing in the process. There are some wonderful old and small and incredibly powerful churches out there.
Anyhow the church in Herm has these wonderful flowers growing outside and just has this really peaceful feel to it - I would love to re-create this in my own garden one day, it is the kind of place where you feel you could sit and meditate and just feel at peace somehow. Perfect for a spiritual retreat centre.
We sat down at Belvoir Bay, which looked magical of course as the sea is always so clear and bright and we went for a swim and were amazed to find that it didn't feel as cold as usual - well either that or we have just become immune to it after swimming on the South coast of Guernsey so much!! We walked back along the spine of the Island, past the cows and down overlooking Jethou, before catching the boatback to Guernsey. Lovely.
Back at home we decided to make the most of the sunshine and put together a picnic/bbq and the 3 of us headed down to Port Soif and set up camp with the sun dropping and the tide rising, bliss! What is so wonderful is the fact that so many other people are doing the same thing, all the way along the coast, people enjoying bbqs, picnics and fish and chips on the beach, and swimming too, so many people swimming and in fact I bumped into a lady who comes to Yoga classes and she went swimming 6 times in the sea today!!!
So while the bbq was heating, E and I went for our third swim of the day and probably the warmest too, with the sea covering the warm sands, plus the bay is like a horseshoe and I am sure this traps the heat somehow. Regardless, it is interesting to swim at all these different places on the Island and notice such a difference in the sea temperature.
After dinner V dropped us at the house in L'Ancresse where we had left the bikes the night before (new moon tomorrow mean it was really dark by the time we were ready to leave and I didn't fancy 30 minutes on a bike not being able to see properly even with bike lights) so we got to enjoy the high tide and the beautiful views a little more as we cycled back home to Vazon - there is some lovely bright purple heather on the bank at Albecq, everyone needs a little lucky heather!
So all in all a stunning weekend and I am looking forward to finishing work tomorrow and getting back to the beach, this is certainly a time to make the most of each moment and all those summer activities!
With gratitude and love.
xxxx
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