Well what a gorgeous, sunny and delightful weekend. This post today is all about therapy, and therapeutic gain… But in a different light than usual, and in line with a notion discussed on Radio 4’s ‘All In The Mind’ show just recently, I’ll explain more later, first let me illustrate the point and show you pictures from my phone, taken this weekend….

Last year, the birds ate 99% of the cherries in my garden at home. So this year, our cherry tree has been moved to a remote corner of the garden, the fruit are thus harder to get to and I have positioned a bunch of tall-standing shrubs that birds cannot stand, right next to it… Add into the mix the fact that we have a cat who is outdoors a great deal with this warm weather, and the birds have nabbed a lot less this year… Here is the tree a few weeks ago, with the cherries just turning red:

So this weekend, having picked several of the cherries during the past week at different stages as they ripened enough, I decided to bake a cherry pie with the fruit of all this labour… Our cherries are cooking cherries and so are not good to eat straight from the tree.

So you pick them, stone them and give them a good wash:

Then they get soaked in some good quality brown caster sugar, a drop of kirsch (we are so devilishly naughty) for around an hour or so. Then the juice gets syphoned off and mixed with cornflour and cinamon, then added back to the fruit. The fruit and its sauce gets poured into our pastry lined dish, and I spent some time weaving strips of pastry to get that lattice effect that looks like something Nigella Lawson would do rather than a football-loving, blokeish hypnotherapist… I have to confess, I did google instructions on how to best do this and watched a couple of US housewives giving instructions on this via YouTube… The joy of the modern world…

Next up, it all got put in the oven, filled the house with a smell that made us want to drool, and out it came after 40 minutes:

We then place a slice in the bowl, scoop some ice cream into the mix, and you have a mid-afternoon summer tea for any occasion, even just hanging out at home and pottering in the garden in Summer with your wife.  Marvellous.

“So Adam, what on earth has you turning into a househusband got to do with therapy and hypnosis?” “Yeah, this blog is about hypnosis, hypnotherapy and all that stuff, not some modern version of the BBC’s 1970s sitcom the Good Life!”

Well, it’s funny you should say that… This was an incredibly simple, joy-filled experience for me.

Whilst doing my pottering on Saturday morning following my run along the beach, I listened to the podcast of the Radio 4 show “All In The Mind” which is a brilliant show all about mental health, psychology, neurology, therapy and so on… They had interviewed a marvellous group of people, led by a local therapist and psychologist who felt that many of their clients and patients did not like the clinical setting of a therapists room, and struggled with formalised therapy for all manner of reasons.

So they had set up a weekly event that invovled them going for a walk in the country and chatting about stuff at the same time. That was it. It was virtually unanimous that it was hugely beneficial to all who joined in. They got to chat at their own pace with friendly people, they got to connect with the great outdoors and enjoy nature and received much therapeutic gain.

There is other such research that can be investigated to show the benefits of being outdoors, having some moderate exercise… And enjoying nature, enjoying fresh air, sunshine, rain and the elements.

Planting fruit and vegetables, picking it and sharing the experience with a loved one is something that makes me incredibly happy and feel well. I recommend it greatly. Ok, am now going to finally take off my apron for my actual client sessions today….  😉