Nature – Page 54 – My Outdoor Living Room

Fresh off the back of the weekend came the inevitable Monday morning blues. The mental kicking and screaming tantrum informing me it’s time to go to the circus again.

How many of us genuinely love our jobs? I’d guess it’s a minority. My job is OK. Tolerable. Maybe I take it for granted. If I did find a job that I loved, however, would I still seek the physical and mental escapes to balance it out?

The dangerous thinking is that (assuming we live to current life expectancy) we spend about 80% of our life at work. Add on all the time we spend asleep, and we’re left with…well…not a lot.

I went running yesterday. It was a long run. I just set myself a time target to see how much distance I could cover in three hours. I enjoyed being out; the weather, the scenery, the solitude. I also loved the challenge. A fair way in to it, I began to tire and it became a case of putting one foot in front of the other. I began to think of how each step, although small, was part of something massive and the end goal wasn’t possible without the smaller parts. Just like moving a mountain. It’s done pebble by pebble. Or a beach, grain by grain.

This led me to wonder. The time spent at work, coping with stress, hoping for better days, more money, ‘clean desk’ policies, unjust promotions, coffee break gossip et al, is worthless. But we all need a job. Filling your marathon-length life with lots of small things adds up to a happy life. Making the most of the the small things. Small things add up to big things. Do more small things. I’m hoping to do some voluntary work, picking up litter. What I pick up will be a minute segment of the litter in my town, not to mention the planet. But it’s a little step towards a much bigger goal. Baby steps. Not just for babies after all.

After a week away from it, I decided I would make the most of the early autumnal sunshine and walk down to the rough ground. I find September to be a melancholy time of year. The end of summer, impending winter, watching things die back. I used to dread the end of August. But in recent years, I’ve grown to embrace it. Not like it, just embrace it.

One advantage to shorter days is you get more time to catch up on any reading. I especially like reading books about natural history and reading about spring and summer flora and fauna leaves you looking forward to the new year, giving hope. Autumn and winter also help me to get out more, as strange as it sounds. The cold doesn’t bother me, it’s more the wet and grey that gets me down, so if there’s a sunny day, it’s a great chance to drop everything that can wait, and plan a last minute trip to the hills, lanes, rivers and fields.

I get reflective at this time of year. I used to get depressed that another summer had drifted by without much thought and appreciation but nowadays I’m not like that so much, probably because I do more things that fill my imagination and needs, things I love doing, so when August comes and goes and that fluttery panic feeling creeps in, I smack it back with memories of the past four months. Walks, runs, camping trips, time at the allotment. Basically, less time on the sofa, in front of the TV.

The rough ground looked different yesterday. It was bathed in sunshine. The greenery slowly turning yellow and red. I heard more birds, a couple of crickets and began looking at what trees grow there. I noted a few maples more than anything.

I started to imagine if I could take ownership of the rough ground. What would I do with it? Would I close it off and leave it to mother nature or actively manage it? I thought first and foremost that I’d manage it. Remove non-native trees and plants, and encourage young saplings to grow up to regenerate the area. I pretty much worked out that I was more or less taking things away, not adding anything, which sounds unproductive but in the long term, it’s adding new trees and plants. It’s hard to work out what is ‘natural’ for an inner city scrub. Invasive species thrive. Being near a river, in flood, seeds will wash up. Damp ground fauna will survive over ill-planted species. I did definitely decide to keep it as open access, I mean, what’s the point in creating an urban wild patch that no one can appreciate also? Other that the obvious litter problem and the burned out car, and trolleys, there’s no sign of vandalism. If I showed care for it, would other people? Would I even mention it to friends? I haven’t even told my friends about this blog.