Being Outside More

In Forest School last week we were learning about hibernation, with the aid of a small knitted hedgehog puppet. As I sit recovering today from a wisdom tooth extraction last Thursday, I am sorely tempted to make the time pass by sleeping soundly for a few weeks and waiting for this time to be over. Except I’m human, not hog, and so I must stay awake and vaguely functional. It feels as if all the energy in my body is directed towards the wound in my gum, although at least this morning I bear less of a resemblance to a lopsided Orson Welles as the swelling subsides. Never a good look for a middle-aged woman. Writing feels difficult and pointless under these conditions, I fear sounding peevish. I do sound peevish. I find it hard to concentrate on reading, hard to put my thoughts in order. I’m too tired to do my usual bounding along walks and must content myself with shorter ones, trying to “see the joy in small things” and wanting to throw things at the self help peddlers that suggest suc...

Today is supposedly 'Blue Monday', the most depressing day of the year. Twenty years ago, probably in a bid to sell more holidays, a travel company released the results of some research it had commissioned, employing a psychologist to come up with a ‘scientific formula’ for low mood at this time of year. Although the way the phrase regularly resurfaces and swirls around social media shows the stickiness of the concept. This time last year my teenage daughter was out of school, and it certainly felt a particularly bleak time. I spent my days researching options, chasing down possible support, crafting emails, meeting professionals who expressed dismay that we seemed to be ‘slipping through the cracks’ as they put it. As if what was happening to our family was some kind of careless mistake, rather than the systemic failure of education and health institutions to meet the needs of my autistic child. This January some of that work has paid off, and my daughter is now attending a sm...

My walks have been close to home over the last few weeks, familiar paths, no great mountains scaled. Just moments of quiet amongst the sparkle and noise of a modern Christmas. I took photos with my phone, filling my camera reel with snaps of red hawthorn berries and the ever verdant ivy, twining and greening my local woods. But also hazel catkins, surely early this year? Slowly I'm learning to identify trees, painstakingly learning knowledge that my Wiltshire-born grandfather took for granted. He tried his best to pass things on, but I was busy not listening as a small child, too keen to climb a tree or investigate a puddle with my wellies. He was too impossibly old for me then, a thatch of white hair atop a long-legged body, using his walking stick to lean on but also to hook down a choice piece of holly. I am grateful for the cold clear sunny days of this midwinter. I feel grumpy that our current calendar jumps us from Christmas, our most recent version of a midwinter celebration...

  Only six days until the winter solstice , one of those grey drear starts to the day, such an effort to wake up and move. The sky feels oppressive, a solid mass of cloud piled above my head. I feel nostalgic for those few crisp cold days we experienced in late November, a feeling of security in the seasons. Maybe that is why the current mild damp weather unsettles, yet another reminder of our changing climate. All those Christmas cards featuring drifts of snow are so far away from reality. White Christmases have always been rare in my home city of Bristol, but I find myself wondering, have we seen the last one without realising? If we do have snow here it tends to be well after Christmas, into February and sometimes March. Today started with a quotidian disaster - a missed train to school, weary tears, reassurance needed. Whilst waiting for the next train to arrive I sit on a bench in the drizzle, rain seeping into my trousers, I spot a pair of wagtails hopping and darting, sippin...