Sunday, late afternoon; I’ve just been out for a short post-work walk and am wondering why I don’t do so more often. I always feel at my best mentally and emotionally when I am outside and in nature.
Today, the weather and scenery were stunning. Having just had several days of rain, (which I was most happy to see arrive after the driest May on record had the land scorched to dust) the sun has returned. Yesterday was all big blue expansive skies that seem to be bigger than they ought to, today the blue has been punctuated with white cloud and a slight breeze.
The route I took is quite short and one I have done many times before. If I don’t dawdle (which of course, I always do, stopping to look, smell, feel and listen to all the wonders around me) I can leave the house and be back again in half an hour – if I rush. But why rush? I’ll never understand people who charge their way through a walk. Why aren’t they stopping to trail their hands in the long grass, to peek into ditches, do they not close their eyes and breathe the fresh air pretending for a brief moment that nothing else exists? I can’t imagine going for a walk and not holding stones or picking up feathers or peering as close as I can at insects and lamenting, as ever, my lack of bird call knowledge when I hear the twittering around me. Although, today, I was quite happy that I was able to identify a chiff chaff.
Not all land owners and farmers are great at encouraging people to walk the public footpaths by keeping them clear and easily identifiable – there are a few round here like that. But, others are very good at it, and my walk begins around fields on a path that is kept mown; wide enough for one, or two if you are very close. I was led initially by several tiny brown flittering butterflies who appeared to skip about only a few inches ahead of my toes. One finally settled long enough on a butter cup for me to take a quick (terrible) picture and I think they were small heaths. The area I was currently walking round has been left to go to wild land and long grasses 
and the beautiful feathery fronds jigged in the breeze with their soft green and purple hues. Beautiful. But, as with as many places there is talk of it being built on which saddens me greatly. I can see brambles beginning to flower in the hedgerows, bringing promises of delicious fruits to come. I will be out picking and eating later in the year.
A little further along my walk I spot a large black shape on a nettle leaf. Looking closer it is a caterpillar, dark and bristly; looking extremely gothic. As I peer further into the nettle patch, I see that there are in fact many of them, all on nettle leaves, and so once more I take to my books and the internet to find out what they are: the caterpillars of the Peacock butterfly.
The reason I had stopped and began perusing the nettles was because I was getting myself back together after being highly startled by a pair of pheasants. I think though that they may have been more startled by me. I gave my apologies, especially as it was a male and female I had rudely interrupted. They flew off in the clumsy, flapping barking that they do without giving me the courtesy of an apology for scaring the life out of me.
Against all the blue, green and yellow of this early summer day, large shining black plastic greeted me next – the covering for bales of straw. My best friend and I have long loved the sight of bales in fields, particularly as we feel they always seem as if they are grazing. Many a time we have sent each other pictures of such with the caption: grazing bales. I may have tweeted a video at her this time.
My head and heart by this point wanted to continue to walk for hours. Unfortunately my body, with its various ails, does not comply and so reluctantly I begin to head home. I can manage an hour of gentle walking but by the end will still be in pain, so I am learning to take things easier than I would like – learning but not liking – I get very grumpy about this.
But I am blessed, I know, to be able to go out at all and also to be close enough to be out in nature so quickly. I know not everyone can and so I recorded just a short part of my walk, which you can watch below. Watching nature and imagining yourself in it can be beneficial too. When I was going through cancer treatment, I would sometimes close my eyes and take myself off for a walk in my mind. I would imagine every detail from putting on my shoes and picking up my keys, to what I would see and feel out there; and I’m sure it helped me. Perhaps, if you can’t get out, for whatever reason, I can give you this little bit of nature.