Sailors Falls

When life gets too busy, like now, it's easy to let time outside slip as well. Don't you find that? It might be that we are too busy with bookwork with older kids, or with paid work, or even with work around the home. For us, the setting up of our business in its new location is sucking time from everything else, and the harder we work, the grumpier we become, despite our every effort to be delightful to each other and only speak kind, uplifting words of encouragement. Ahem.

This, of course, is when time outside in the beauty God's creation is the most important of all, and this Sunday we made time to visit Sailors Falls outside Daylesford on our way home from church.

Despite the fact that there wasn't much water in the Falls - I fear we might be heading for another drought - we felt instantly relaxed in this beautiful place, and I was reminded of this section in Ourselves:

Have you ever been in the fields on a spring day, and heard nothing at all but your own voice and the voices of your companions, and then, perhaps, suddenly you have become silent, and you find a concert going on of which you had not heard a note? At first you hear the voices of the birds; then, by degrees, you perceive high voices, low voices, and middle voices, small notes and great notes, and you begin to wish you knew who sang each of the songs you can distinguish.

Then, as you listen more, you hear more. The chirp of the grasshoppers becomes so noisy that you wonder you can hear yourself speak for it; then the bees have it all to themselves in your hearing; then you hear the hum or the trumpet of smaller insects, and perhaps the tinkle and gurgle of a stream. The quiet place is full of many sounds, and you ask yourself how you could have been there without hearing them.

Charlotte Mason, Ourselves p29-30

We only had time for a brief wander, but we walked in silence, all three of us, hand in hand, and just appreciated being a family and listening to the beautiful song of nature.

When we climbed back in the car we felt invigorated. Our batteries were recharged and our love tanks were full. The chatter in the car was much happier during the rest of the journey home.

My only concern about the whole experience stems from the fact that Jemimah's daddy has determined that next time we visit Sailors Falls we shall do so on foot from Daylesford. That's quite a walk. Driving there worked just fine for me.