The hedgerow feeds both body and soul

"Strange things go on here .... but it's brilliant"

Trusting our group and giving them the time and space to 'simply be' has provided us with food for both body and soul. We contemplated the shift from summer to autumn as we watched the geese fly overhead and gathered blackberries and elderberries from the hedgerow.

Spiders webs and dew drops prompted philosophical discussions such as "do spiders think or is it instinct?". Preserving the webs made us question if each spider makes webs in their own style like a finger print and marvel at their precision and strength - the "marvellous architects" of nature, as one intrigued passer by noted.

Caterpillars racing across the path make us wonder where they are going and what they will become. Butterflies and dragonflies flutter around us as we share the fruits gathered, prepared and cooked by the group.

We spend so much time rushing about that these things, the important things, often go unnoticed and yet bring such joy and fulfilment to the whole group.

Being able to spend time in the here and now, without labels that are placed on us by society or by a diagnosis of dementia, without the confines of a number that is our age, without pressure to remember what was done on holiday, what happened this morning or someones name, affords us the freedom to be filled by the richness of life in every moment as it arrives.

It enables us all to carry with us the feeling of a lifted spirit without having to remember what gave us that feeling - it is enough to feel it, to experience it and to trust it.