A real change – by guest blogger Beth Macdonald

Oh March! Isn’t it so good to see you in all your autumn glory? Shorter days. Cooler mornings and evenings and a chance to start to dress a little more stylishly {or is that just me?}. A chance to get the fire on. A chance to switch salads with pork belly and really relax. Everything is starting to slow down. The grass and garden growth {much to my husband’s delight} is less voracious. The afternoons and evenings that are coming a little quicker each day seem to bring with them long, glorious light that takes it’s time in leaving the day behind. My mind, most certainly, is slowing down and has an awareness, a mindfulness about it as it settles into this new season that lays before us.

There has certainly been a change in all of us these past 5 months that we have lived here in this lovely little town. A huge shift from busy city people living in the inner west, in a small terrace to happier, more relaxed people lucky enough to call Burrawang home. I’m not too sure what I was mindful of then. Most certainly my inconvenience at not being able to get a park out the front of our house, or in our street even. That was front of my mind. Each and every day. The stresses of getting kids to daycare, getting ourselves to work, getting through the day, making sure the kids stayed well enough through the week so no one would have to take time off from school or work and going through the motions of day to day {stressful} life. That was front of my mind. The worry. The money. The stress. The busyness.

But now.

These few short months later it’s not just the season that is changing before our very eyes. It’s something actually in me. It’s an ability to stop. Slow down. A mindfulness of my surroundings and within ourselves that I never had before. A chance to really look around. See the changes of the leaves. See the blueness of the sky. The greenness of the trees. The looks of joy upon my girl’s faces whenever they see cows in a paddock or run on our amazingly green and expansive lawn. The sheer beauty that is all around me that takes my breath away almost every single day. I am so grateful that we took this plunge. Made the change. And have these Autumn days to enjoy this real change of seasons for our small family.

Beth moved to Burrawang from Camperdown just five months ago and writes regularly on her blog: http://littlereginald.blogspot.com/

Images taken by Beth on a recent walk around Burrawang.