I am quite obsessed with clouds and love nothing better than to do a little cloudspotting whenever the moment arises. Lucky my work as a Kindy aide at the local school means I have a reason to look skyward, in the name of education. So it is rather sad when they need a lot of prompting to see pictures in the sky, lack of imagination ? Or simply so used to looking down at tech devices, the sky doesn’t hold their engagement at all. Rather sad that we ended doing a whole term about weather so now they take notice of the world and sky above them.

It is so relaxing to watch the skies and clouds moving across before you. Our school being on a hill meant we could see for miles to the hills, and not quite the sea. I see pictures in the clouds as well as like the shape formations in them catch my eye and even more my imagination. It also lovely to simply sit for a few moments and stare skyward as a kind of mediation of sorts.

It also a very good way to distress myself and the Kindys I work with who find it relaxing and want to share their discoveries with me,which leads to a lot of rich dialogue on their part.

They are like me quite transfixed at how the clouds move fast at times and other times really slow. And when the clouds cover the sun it makes for excited cries to me about shadows and that clouds indeed have them. Funny enough the Kindy think that only people, animals and trees have shadows, so it is wonderful to hear and see their little scientist minds tick over these discoveries and to be filed away for later.

To myself the clouds seem to ground the sky somewhat from flying away. Without them the sky looks like a endless void of blue, that I often find myself engulfed and lost within. I kinda feel claustrophobic looking at it for too long. It’s as if the clouds appear closer to the ground, that they almost touching the horizon.

The clouds have so many faces and moods they seem almost human to me. One of my favourite memories when I lived in Petworth,West Sussex right in the South Downs and the whole village was totally engulfed by the clouds one day in Winter.

You felt as if you were living amongst the clouds and not on the ground at all. The children I was Nanny to got so excited and then I made up a story about two children having adventures in a land of clouds. It has been a memory never forgotten, ever.

Then there are times where the clouds aren’t fluffy and white, but black and heavy of rain. These times I love to watch them carry their heavy burden until finally they burst and bring rain down. I wonder if maybe they are sad, or wonder what it would be like to be on the ground looking up instead of looking down ? But of course that is a silly fantasy really ? Clouds have no feelings they are simply clouds nothing more or less.

Whatever the rhyme or reason clouds are fun to watch and see them pass on by to somewhere anew. Today I hunt the sky, alas no clouds to be found at all. Just open sky so blue it hurts your eye if you stare too long.

Anyway happy cloudspotting to everybody out there in the blogosphere, may you find a perfect cloud to sit under and ponder.

Kitty-Kat xox