It takes the simple things in life to show you how complicated they in fact are...

A quiet summer evening. Low sunlight slanting. Garden glowing gently. Constant light drone of farm machinery on the distant hillside. A large sack of broad beans brought in from the veggie patch, waiting for me to shell them...

What a perfect way to spend a few hours. Wrong. My mind thinks of all the things that it would rather I was doing, and all the things that it knows I have to do in the near future, and makes me feel impatient. It’s a struggle to get back to the feel of tearing open the pods and the furry insides.

What a perfect way to spend a few hours. Wrong again. My mind thinks of all the things that have upset me today, and all the things that it knows frustrated me to the point of tears at work in my new crappy job. It’s a struggle to get back to look at the shiny new beans never seen by human eye before. It reminds me of breaking open fossils on Chesil Beach.

Moment by moment, and time and time again I try to enjoy the simple moment.

Life is just a bowl of broad beans,
Don't take it serious,
Life's too mysterious
You work,
You save,
You worry so
But you can't take your dough
When you go, go, go

So keep repeating "It's the broad beans."
The strongest oak must fall
The sweet things in life
To you were just loaned
So how can you lose
What you've never owned

Life is just a bowl of broad beans
So live and laugh,
Laugh and love
Live and laugh at it all!

Apologies to Buddy G. DeSylva and Lew Brown who wrote the original lyrics in 1931.