In this moment

The enchantment of summer captured in small moments, as this season shifts into the next.

The time will come to sit down at my desk, for checking emails and sending reports, dealing with urgencies, for planning and deadlines and meetings.

But now, in this moment, I pick my way carefully and quietly through the shed, passed the bikes and the buckets, the toolbox and the tent, to retrieve my camera. The blackbird sits tight on the nest she and her mate have made in the old biscuit tin, until it’s clear that I mean to get too close for comfort, and she flits away...

Back in the kitchen, I watch, enchanted.

As the blackbirds tend to their chicks, arriving with beaks filled with worms and insects, quickly deposited in gaping beaks. As translucent skin becomes opaque, as fluff and tiny pin feathers sprout, as eyes open, as beaks open and stretch up on wobbly necks, as tiny voices strengthen, as wings are tested.

And in the next moment, they have fledged.

The time will come for loading the washing machine, for vacuuming the floor, for folding the laundry and emptying the bins.

But now, in this moment, I creep once again through the shed, climb up the step ladder to retrieve my camera. The wren watches warily.

Again, I am enchanted, watching as she flits back and forth. At first, I cannot make out the chicks, the nest is high up in a hidden corner between the roof and the beams and she hops right inside to feed them. But as they grow, as their tweets grow louder, I can make out the yellow of their beaks against the dark of their sanctuary.

I risk turning on my camera light, to capture better this moment. I hope not to disturb them, but I want so desperately to witness this magic. I am rewarded.

In the next moment, the shadow cast by the light turns the house spider into a giant tarantula in the wren’s tiny beak. The chicks hungrily gobble it up. Oblivious of my horror.

The time will come for sitting in a traffic jam on the way to the office, for navigating crowded streets, waiting at red lights, and inching forward in the slow crawl of the morning commute.

But now, in this moment, we build a new pen for the piglets at the city farm and a shelter for the children who visit. We meet the chickens and goats and sheep, and relocate plants to the duck enclosure. We rescue snails and stag beetle larvae, carefully transporting them to safety, away from rakes and shovels and sledgehammers and saws.

The time will come for cooking dinner, for setting the table and wiping it clean, for clearing and washing the dishes, for the rhythm of evening routines.

But now, in this moment, the water glitters like diamonds, swans glide gracefully across the shimmering surface. In the shallows, a school of minnows dances in the light, a flower crab spider hides among white petals and a jersey tiger moth takes flight, revealing a brilliant flash of red beneath her striped wings.

The time will come for packing book bags and organising uniform and PE kits, checking timetables and making sure lunch boxes are ready, for the rush of school mornings and the flurry of goodbyes.

But now, in this moment, autumn is in the air, the swallows gather for their journey south, the bindweed garlands of green tendrils and white blooms adorn the verges still, tiny snails circumnavigate the greater burdock leaves and the ivy reveals a magical doorway that is invisible to the human eye, sensed only by its twisting stems.

The time will come for rain, for pulling on coats and wellies, for hosing down muddy dogs and mopping up the floors.

But now, I delight in these fleeting moments of warmth and light, savouring what remains of this season, anticipating the next.

Capturing the enchantment of small moments, preserving them in memory like pressed flowers between the pages of a book. And although the moments will live on only in memory, when the magic feels distant and the days grow long with routine, I will revisit them like old friends. And in those quiet reflections, rekindle an echo of that same enchantment, now, in this moment.

Bye for now,

I hope you have enjoyed reading, please send some hearts and tell me of your enchanted summer moments. I’d love to know.