It’s raining again – oh no, the sun is out, nope, it’s raining!

I don’t know about you, but I do love living in good old Blighty, despite the bonkers weather.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons I love it here – the ever-changing weather that keeps you on your toes.

Take the colour green, for example. Have you ever noticed just how many shades of green there are around us?  Something that I am reminded of whenever I look through a plane window on a flight home from abroad – leaving the neutral colour palette of a country with a mainly warm and dry climate behind and watching the vast expanse of our rich green pastures unfold as we come in to land.

Whatever you think of the British weather, if you don’t like it one day, there’s always a good chance you will like it the next. The weather last weekend was certainly very diverse – Blighty at its best!

Some of you may already know that I love to do a Parkrun on a Saturday morning with my partner, Gareth. Parkrun was set up several years ago and now operates globally.  It’s a 5K run, usually around a country park or similar, is free to take part in, and is run by volunteers. https://www.parkrun.org.uk/

For me, there are so many elements to the brilliance of the Parkrun.  For starters, there is a fabulous community of like-minded folk, all crazy enough to leap out of bed on a Saturday morning (come rain or shine) to take part; you form new friendships and you can visit different locations as a ‘tourist’; there are different ways of measuring your commitment / success, from the number of runs you have taken part in, to your finishing time, or to where you have finished in relation to your age-graded group.

Gareth is my fab ‘partner in crime’ when it comes to running, swimming, cycling and generally being outdoors – he loves it as much, if not more, than I do.  Last Saturday brought with it a particularly soggy Parkrun.  It was drizzling as we set off with a field of nearly 300 other Parkrunners, and as we finished, the heavens opened.  The run itself felt tough, but it took Gareth just 22 minutes (and me 34 minutes – I am not the fastest!)  Neither of us scored a PB, but we’d got out, and that sense of satisfaction eventually kicked in when we returned home and showered (having left a trail of puddles on the floor in our wet running gear).

So why on earth do we do it?!

For all of the following, I guess: the exercise, the sense of achievement, the community spirit, the countryside, the colours, the fresh air.  They all generate that feel-good factor.  And you have to laugh when you get so ruddy wet!

Sure enough, the sun came out in the afternoon!  In fact, it was unseasonably warm weather.  A complete contrast to how the day had started.

And I baked more cake!  We had friends over in the evening who brought dinner and dessert with them, all homemade, and board games too.  It might not sound very ‘rock and roll’, but the energy that goes into baking and cooking and playing games around a table is valuable and, I think, has been lost over the years with fast food and tech.

It was a day of many contrasts, all fabulous.

In reflection, I’d like to highlight the following:

  • The changing weather makes for an interesting life, and there is always something you can do differently if it changes, which can take your experiences in another direction
  • Being out in nature is good for the soul
  • Friendships and communities are vitally important to being human
  • Parkrun is great for anyone, from runner to volunteer – it gives your Saturday morning a fabulous kick-start
  • A sense of achievement can be gained in a myriad of ways
  • We need both the rain and the sun
  • We can dance in the rain and radiate in the sun
  • Learning new, complex board games after a couple of glasses of wine is an interesting experience
  • Homemade food cooked with love is far better for you than processed stuff

I love life and I love to see the positive in everything. Hop on over to my Facebook page https://www.sarahjnaylor.com/manifest-your-dream-job/ to join with my fab community, or for a weekly blast of happiness in your life, head on over to my podcast https://bit.ly/Harnessing_Happiness  – a new episode is released every Tuesday and a short ‘Happy Clappy’ episode every Friday to set you up for the weekend.

What do you love about Blighty?  Hit reply and share your thoughts – I’d love to hear from you.

Lots of love

Sarah xx

PS If you’re interested in knowing about the board game, we played this one: https://www.daysofwonder.com/tickettoride/en/