Sharpham House - retreats, reedbeds and rewilding

Even on a wet winter’s day, nature’s beauty can still astonish me. Here’s a pond I’ve walked past countless times, but it was only yesterday that I suddenly realised how picturesque it was and was inspired to take a photograph of it. Perhaps it was the season revealing the bones of  the corner.

 

Pond. (I wanted Ellie in the view but she raced off to bark at something at the critical time.)

I love tree skeletons, and here is a row of them that caught my eye as I sat in a soggy field a few days ago having my quiet moment.

 

Tree skeletons

I’ve now been on my retreat (mentioned in the previous post - I lied about the timing) and it was a wonderful experience. Beautiful warm house, fabulous setting, excellent teaching and lovely people. Here are some pictures.

 

The view from my room. That's the River Dart you can see below.

The house was built in the eighteenth century, and here is its marble staircase - lethal if you're not wearing proper shoes

As a result of the retreat, I’m trying to meditate regularly - currently short sessions three times a day. The explanations make it sound so simple but the practice is anything but, and the more I try to meditate the more questions I have about it. Maybe I need to go on another retreat, such as Mindfulness for Beginners – another Sharpham event that’s caught my eye.

I do feel different though, so I perhaps I did have the ‘reset’ I wanted.

Here are some more of the pictures I took at Sharpham.

A sunrise from my room

A strange henge in some reedbeds down by the Dart

Pristine mudflats and reedbeds stretching back upriver towards Totnes. I spotted herons, geese and seagulls, but I know such habitats are of international importance and I'm sure there was a lot more that I didn't spot. (It's drizzle, not my technique, that's misting the picture.)

Sharpham is rewilding a chunk of land leading down to the reedbeds, but I didn't have time to get much further than this information board