What a road trip!! 
Last weekend, I treated my fiancé to a birthday weekend at a forest retreat, just forty minutes from where we live in Mid-Wales. I liked the fact that it had no mobile signal or wifi, just a cottage surrounded by trees, birds and tranquillity.
After half an hour on the main road, we turned onto a country lane that got narrower and windier, but as a Welsh country bumpkin, I’m well used to those.
However, after meeting two cars travelling way too fast, and having to squeeze past them inch by inch, I started to hope we would arrive soon.
Then, we had to take a left turn that was such a hairpin bend going back on ourselves, down a slope, that I just couldn’t see the road! I had to do a five-point turn to make it, whilst continually asking Jon,
“Am I still on the road?!” 
Having made the turn, I then drove us along an almost non-existent track, through a field of sheep and lambs, most of whom were sleeping right in front of us. Must admit it made a good place to stop for a few cute photos.
After gently encouraging the sheep to move off the track, we started to climb slowly up into the forest and the road was SO bad, parts of it were missing and I had to drive up the bank to avoid grounding the car.
Anyway, we finally pulled into a tiny parking space in front of a beautiful cottage in the heart of the forest. We had a wonderful weekend of walking and lazing about in the dappled woodland and enjoyed relaxing in the sunshine.
It may be easier to practise Mindfulness when we are relaxing in nature but we can find it most useful when we’re in a stressful situation. If we tell ourselves we can handle this moment, and this moment, and this moment (like on the dodgy lane), without letting our mind race ahead to worst case scenarios, we will stay calm (ish).
Love and joy,
I often think about what we have to go through before we can be where we want to be and sometimes the journey is challenging to say the least. I know it’s a cliché to say the destination is worth it, which it usually is, but we can also find moments on the way that can bring us joy. Seeing the little lambs skip across the track in front of us that weekend was priceless.
Juliet.