How often do we stop and simply look and appreciate what is all around us?

I recently stopped on my commute and took some photographs of a most beautiful sunset in the village of Atcham in Shropshire.

In many ways it was an ordinary sunset, if there is such a thing as an ordinary sunset!

But when you take photographs, it does make you pay more than usual attention to composition, shapes and colours. And the more I looked, the more I noticed.

Not only were the clouds such beautiful, changing hues of orange, red and grey, but many were also, as in the photograph, reflected beautifully in the stillness of the Severn, where I could also see the perfect reflected silhouettes of trees.

It was a very memorable few minutes.

And it reminded me of the power of how good it is to be deliberately mindful in the way we use our amazing sense of sight.

It’s a very worthwhile exercise just to take a few moments every day to look mindfully at our surroundings. Really loook at details, shapes, colours. See what you notice! See if you, too, are sometimes inspired!