Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott.
And as you join me today,
I am looking out over the North Sea.
I am in Yorkshire,
Just outside of Whitby.
And when I arrived here,
We were travelling down from Scotland on our way back home to the south-west of England.
And we thought we'd just stop off en route for three nights.
And both of us had heard of Whitby and thought,
Well,
Why don't we go and camp near Whitby?
So we did.
And on our first day,
As we went into Whitby,
And Whitby is a coastal town,
We just found ourselves completely discombobulated with the amount of people.
It's a holiday town.
And we live in the south-west of England,
And we've got many holiday hotspots that tourists flock to.
And as locals,
We know to avoid those hotspots during the summer season.
It's just not our kind of cup of tea.
And yet here in Whitby,
We came to Whitby and we found we had unwittingly come to what is a very popular holiday resort.
There are beaches here.
There are shops selling sweets and ice creams and fish and chips and amusement arcades.
People with sand buckets and are going to build sand castles.
For families,
It's a really super,
Super place.
But for us,
It's just not what we find is where our heart lies.
So we came back to the campsite after that first experience of Whitby and wondered,
Well,
What are we going to do?
What are we going to do?
Because this isn't what we were expecting.
And compared to the wild expanse of Scotland that we'd just left behind,
And the rugged wildness that I had been witnessing day in,
Day out,
This felt an assault on the senses.
And I remember just leaving a little message for my sister just to let her know what happened.
And her message back was along the lines of,
Find the peace.
Find the peace in Whitby.
And the next morning,
I went for my morning walk and I stumbled across the very beautiful walk right beside the ocean that took me all the way back down to Whitby.
It was probably a good mile and a half along coast paths and a promenade.
And as I was walking,
The tide was out,
The beach was wide and sandy.
There were dog walkers and people running and just enjoying breathing in the freshness of the air.
And I realized that I had found my peace.
And then today,
I thought it was time to re-enter Whitby and just experience it for what it is.
And I noticed the people smiling and the kindness of people dodging on and off the curbs to allow pedestrians to go through,
And people saying sorry and thank you and just people having a good time.
And it might not be my good time,
But I realized,
Wow,
This is a great place.
And for people that love it,
This is very special.
And then as I was walking back to the campsite along the coast path,
I came across a bench.
And the bench has got two dedications on it.
One of it was to the wife of someone who died.
And it was saying that he was heartbroken at her death.
And then there was another dedication a few years later.
He,
The husband,
Had died as well.
And the message was that they are now together.
And as I read that message and I sat on the bench and I enjoyed the view and imagined that this was the same view as they look from the clifftops down towards the grey-green sea that's crashing in over the promenade now because the tide has come in.
I imagined this couple enjoying the space.
And my heart just settled as I realized that this was a special place,
A settling place for others.
So the message today or the question today is about finding peace.
Finding peace even when you find yourself in a situation that feels discombobulating to you.
It feels unsettling for you.
My question is,
And I'm curious to know,
How do you find your peace when all around you feels unsettled?
How do you find your peace when all around you feels unsettled?
I'd love to know.
