Slowing down and living with intention has given me the time to bake again. Nourishing myself and my family with wholesome, flavourful food, free from preservatives and additives.

Before I retired, life revolved around the clock. Time to get out of bed, time to get in the car, time to drop the kids at school, time to start work; and so the day would go, dictated by the hands of time. It was the mechanistic rhythm of the modern world, where even the seasons are adjusted by moving the clock forward in spring and back in autumn.

Slowing down, for me, has been about redefining my days. There are still routines, but now they follow the rhythm of nature, my body, my spirit, my mind, and my family; not the relentless ticking of the clock.

Ingredients

Metric measurements used.

• 1 cup of chopped dried dates
• 1 cup of boiling water
• 1 tbsp butter
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
• 1 cup of self-raising flour
• 1 cup of self-raising wholemeal flour

Method

• Preheat oven to 170C
• Grease and flour 2 cylindrical nut loaf tins
• Soak dates in boiling water.
• Cream butter and sugar.
• Beat egg and mix into to creamed mixture.
• Add bicarbonate of soda to soaked dates, stir until creamy looking.
• Stir soda and dates into the egg and sugar mixture.
• Sift and stir in both flours, mixing until well combined.
• Add half of mix into each nut loaf tin
• Bake for 30 mins.
• Stand in tins for a few minutes before releasing the loaves to cool on wire trays.

Recipe adapted from: The Commonsense Cookery Book (Book 1)

I’ve found learning to slow down to be a difficult process. In many ways, it has exposed cracks within me, feelings of loneliness and a lack of social connection outside the roles I once held. Slowing down isn’t easy; it asks me to spend time with myself, to sit within my own company. Time no longer rushes me from one task to the next. Instead, I am standing still, facing the work I once didn’t understand, the work of truly discovering who I am beneath society’s expectations.