Gentle days in the countryside | the art of slowing down and doing nothing 🪵🍂🫖

We're having one of those rare days where we just kind of have nothing to do and we wanted to go down to the beach, but the weather's being a little bit like hit and miss. Sometimes it's raining, it's not raining, it's overcast, it's sunny, so we just thought it's not really beach weather. It's also still probably a little bit too cold, considering it technically is still winter. So we thought rather than just sort of like sitting home and doing nothing, we'll head out and kind of just see where the day takes us. We want to go and grab a coffee and I'd like to go into the shops and kind of pick up some new basics and then I kind of just wanted to do something creative and go down to the park. I've packed a little analogue bag so I thought I'd show you what's in my little bag for an afternoon in the park. I have brought my planner because I want to write down a bunch of content ideas and things for our upcoming trip. I'm working with some accommodation while I'm there so I kind of really want to get organised for that collaboration. I've also brought my Kindle in case I kind of feel like reading. I am currently reading the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J Maas and I'm absolutely loving it. It's been a while since I've read her books and I kind of forgot just like how good they are. I also brought my watercolour paints with me. I haven't used watercolours in ages because I've been using gouache so much, but I've got both my little travel kit with some paints in there and then I also just packed some extra like tube paints as well just so I have more colours. And then I dug this out of my wardrobe. It's just like a watercolour with me in the forest version and I just thought I could probably use this to get some inspiration if I'm not really too sure what I feel like painting. I really love these books because they give you quite detailed instructions on how to paint and a lot of the little images that you can paint are really really cute. This one's one of my favourites because it's all like countryside themed as well. I think the mood for today is just to kind of like go with the flow and see what we end up getting up to. I'm really keen to go for a nice little walk if the weather holds off and go and see some of like all the flowers that are in season in the park. First stop is let's go grab a coffee. It's amazing how something as simple as just going to get a coffee and going to go and sit in the park can make you feel so much better. I know that if we had stayed home all day and even just done the same things like even if I had just stayed home and painted all day I probably would have felt really bored and a little uninspired and almost like I'd wasted the day. So even though I'm doing the same things just out and about it immediately just felt so much better. And it's not like we really even did anything too extravagant. We literally just went to coffee and went for a walk in the park and you know and like I sat there and painted and Jesse read his book and it was just such a lovely afternoon. But it did get me thinking about how important it is to try and find a couple of hours a week where you can just kind of carve out some time for yourself and do something that you really just enjoy and have like a little bit of me time. I feel like I'm talking about me time on this channel all the time because it is so important. One of my closest friends she's a new mum to twins and each week her and her partner have days where they can just go and do something that they love. You know he will go golfing with his friends once a week and she will go to pottery a couple of times a week where she can just go and do something for herself and I think it's so important that you know it's easy just to get wrapped up in life and the busyness of life and we kind of forget to do the things that bring us joy. And I was even saying to Jesse today when I was painting that I miss doing my hobbies. It's very easy for me to get very wrapped up in my work, planning and writing down things and things like that. It is hard sometimes for me to actually tune out and take time away from life just to do something that feels good, it's just fun, it's just creative and it makes your brain switch off. It's kind of like a form of meditation, your brain just stops thinking about things for a second and you're just wholly focused on the thing that you're doing, whatever that might be, whether it's pottery, painting, exercise, anything like that. Anyway, I thought I'd quickly show you what I picked up from the shops. I wanted to pick up a couple of basics so I popped into Kukai because they do basics so well. The first item that I picked up is this chocolate coloured v-neck top. It's 100% wool but it's quite lightweight and I thought this was such a flattering fit. I've actually never really gone for a v-neck style before but I really quite liked it and I think because it's a chocolate colour it's very neutral, it'll go with everything. And then the second item that I got is this kind of like a boat neck style, three quarter sleeve black top. Again, I just thought this was such a great basic, it'll pair with so many things, it's easy to wear and I really liked it, I thought it was quite a flattering fit. I quite like a boat neck fit rather than like, you know, just a scoop neck, I think it's really quite flattering. I think we're going to get on with making some muffins. Jessie and I were talking that when we were at the park we were kind of craving something sweet and I had these muffins at home that I was saving to make into a banana bread but instead of making a banana bread I'm going to make these banana chocolate chip muffins. Actually the recipe says it's like a banana bread chocolate chip muffin and it's such a great recipe, it's so good if you're kind of craving something a little bit naughty and a little bit yummy. I'll post the full recipe from the website below so let's get into the kitchen and make some muffins. One thing about me is I'm often reading multiple books at once and I've really been loving reading this book Tuesdays with Marie so before we end this video I thought I would read you a very small paragraph from the book as some kind of parting thoughts to think about. It goes like this. Part of the problem, Mitch, is that everyone is in such a hurry. People haven't found meaning in their lives so they're running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty too and they keep running. Once you start running it's hard to slow yourself down. Just a little food for thought. I hope you enjoyed this video and I will see you next week.