It may just be me, but it feels like this year summer has taken forever to arrive. No offence to April and May, but my memory of them this year is of wet and cold. The good weather is here now though, just in time for half-term, and my social media has filled with pictures of what feels like everyone I have ever met on holidays in Europe or on the south coast, going to festivals, gigs and weddings. Everyone, that is, except me. I’ve spent my sunny weather at home, going to parks in Ilkley and Skipton, the kind of activities that appeal to pre-school children and nearly-toddlers (I have one of each), with a weekend jaunt to a board game convention in Birmingham (yes, really) the height of my half-term excitement.

To my surprise, however, I’m not all that jealous. And don’t get me wrong, I expected to be. I expected to be fuming over friends sunning themselves at the beach while I’m visiting soft play areas and chivvying along toddlers on scooters, but I’m not. And part of that is because of the sheer beauty of Ilkley in the summer, but mostly it’s because lately I’ve been finding joy in the small things in life just as much as the bigger ones. In the light dappling through the trees in the park, in pushing my little boy on the swings, in a pint and a board game at the pub down the road. In a culture that constantly encourages my generation to push ourselves to bigger and flashier experiences, the big Facebook post, the Instagram moment, to find satisfaction in the small things feels almost a revolutionary act.

“What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.” God’s Creation is full of beauty everywhere we look, in the small things and the little moments as much as the famous landmarks and the set-piece events. It is human nature to always want to push ourselves onto bigger and better things, but if we are always pushing for those moments, we risk losing sight of the joy that can be found where we already are and in what we already do.