I haven’t been online much recently. As well as enjoying a relaxing family holiday in England (where better when the weather’s right?), I’ve been living in a world distant from technology. Maybe it’s my mental state trying to re-balance itself, maybe I’m getting old, but I find I get more and more enjoyment from simple things.

Making bread is a pastime (is something more than a pastime when it goes on every day?) that gets easier, more fun, and more interesting the more you do it. Making preserves is a current hit too.

Yesterday I pulled potatoes, carrots, parsnips, pastinaken, and onions from the ground and roasted them with some delicious cumberland sausages from Bury market.

Today I spent a wonderful couple of hours up a tree picking plums. I think it was a sort of meditation. No radio, no walkman, no wifi, no bluetooth, no technology whatsoever, save for a ladder. The more intense things get at work and online, technologically speaking, the more refuge I find in nature and simple ways. It puts things into perspective.