Mentalechoes

After a working week of dreary overcast weather, today blossomed into perfect blue sky sunshine with t-shirt wearing warmth. It was truly beautiful and not to be wasted, so I packed up a blanket, a bottle of strawberry flavoured water as well as a book, and headed to Amsterdamse Bos (Amsterdam Forest). Some years ago a girlfriend showed me a wide open space of soft grass by a small lake where you can swim, and it instantly became one of my favourite spots to lie down and chillout during the summer.

Today there were a lot families, and young lovers, old friends and new friends all scattered around the grassy field. I took a spot aways a fair bit from the main crowd and then turned off my mobile phone. For the next two hours I then enjoyed the easy pleasures of lying quietly reading, and sleeping.

It was heaven!

I didn’t hear one mobile phone; nor one emergency services siren; there was no hussle and bussle of shoppers pushing their way through busy streets; no radios or televisions blared out; it all melted away and the only thing I could hear in the background was the soft sound of a breeze passing through trees, and the echoes of people being happy.

I started thinking how it was so ironic that people in cities pay so much money to keep themselves entertained and distracted from boredom, when one of the greatest pleasures that can be experienced is from a simple sunny day surrounded only by nature, which is given to us freeof charge every sunrise.

In a world becoming more complex because of the first worlds addiction to instant gratification, it a sharp reminder that sometimes the simplest of pleasures are still the ones most satisfying!

Padwanna