Early Morning Sights

There was a horse attempting to eat my hair as I took this photo.

All images above are taken by me, and all (except for the landscape shot with the horse) are un-edited.

This image of the sunrise and mist was taken by my mum (who gets up very early).

I've never been an early riser, but I've recently been getting into the pattern of waking up every morning at six-thirty (with the aid of an alarm). The rewarding views of mist floating above the hills and the beads of dew catching the morning rays makes dragging myself out of bed on the cold winter mornings one hundred percent worth it.  I'll make myself a cup of tea and marvel at the beautiful view that can be seen just from our kitchen window. Then I'll set off down the stairs in boots and a wool coat while firmly clutching my much-loved red Nikon in search of beautiful things to take pictures of.

It's quite amazing how different things look so early in the morning, our raspberry bushes look like they're growing sparkling rubies and the usually avoided cobbler's pegs (twelfth image) look like something out of a fairytale. The sunlight and dew drops make spider's webs visible, flowers look good enough to eat and barbed wire fences beautiful to photograph, everything is transformed.


A combination of mist, dew, sunlight, webs, flowers, succulent berries, mushrooms and birdsong make me think of children's books that were read to me when I was younger, full of whimsy and fairy feasts, enchanted forests and dancing girls with butterfly wings. These beautiful mornings trigger similar feelings to when I was read fairytales and stories by my favourite children's authors (such as May Gibbs, Enid Blyton, Lewis Caroll, C.S. Lewis and Mem Fox). It was very easy to imagine Ragged Blossom from May Gibbs' series of The Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie making her self a skirt from the wattle flowers. Or the leaves and petals from the trees arranging themselves into humanoid forms as they do in Narnia. I could imagine a magic hat whooshing past and finding itself to be a perfect fit on a nearby toad, or Alice running after a white rabbit in a waistcoat.

Once I felt my fingers were about to freeze off, I walked back up the paddock, climbed through a fence and stomped back up the steps knowing I had a wool blanket and Tess of the d'Urbervilles waiting for me. I truly can't think of a better start to the day.