Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott in the most divine,
Gorgeous piece of woodland.
It's a tiny piece of woodland,
It's called Ladieswood,
And to walk around it there's a footpath that is less than a mile long,
So it takes less than 20 minutes just to wander around slowly,
But what a treat.
It's one of these little pockets of peace that just delivers every single time I come here.
It's like nourishment right to the depths of my soul,
And I see here there's a a bench that John Sandy Stanion's family have given here,
Who apparently he loved this place.
He was 82 years 82 years old when he died in 2002,
And I'm just sitting down on the bench now looking down across a sea of blue,
That's a purpley blue of bluebells.
They are just going over now,
And the sunlight is dappling through the leaves,
So little areas are spotlit and then other areas are in the shade of a tree,
And along this footpath as I came towards this patch of bluebells,
The wild garlic was resplendent.
The flowers on wild garlic are little balls of white starry flowers,
And as I walked along the path it was a sea of white contrasting against the dark green of the wild garlic leaves,
And you might be able to hear in the background the occasional car,
Or there's a train line that's very close to this wood as well.
We're not far away from the road,
And we're not far away from a railway line,
And that almost makes this so special too,
Because even amidst the proximity to life,
To 21st century life,
There is this haven,
This absolute haven.
And as I sit here on this bench just looking down across these bluebells that are on the slope down below me,
I can see two blackbirds in the tree,
The beech tree with the leaves that are freshly green that have just come out,
Two blackbirds sort of flitting along.
They look,
Both of them look black,
So I wonder if that's two male birds,
Maybe that's,
Maybe they're fledglings,
I don't know,
I'm not sure.
Maybe fledglings aren't black,
I don't know.
There's so much I don't know about nature,
And as I walked along the path there was a thrush that was bobbing along in front of me,
Just kind of keeping ahead of me as I walked along on the footpath.
I just wonder what happens to people that don't have this opportunity to settle in a slice of nature like this.
What happens?
What is it like not to find space and find this sense of peace and calm and inner silence that comes from just being around the beauty of trees,
Birds,
Bluebells and wild garlic?
I can almost feel the sound of the birds in there,
In the air there is so many birds singing,
And I feel as though it just reminds me that I sometimes forget I am part of nature,
That when I separate myself from nature,
When I go into my house and I lock myself onto my computer and I get in my car and I go shopping and I pick groceries off the shelf,
I lose that connection to nature or I forget that I am part of that connection to nature.
And for me I feel a deep thirst that needs to be quenched,
Which is why walking and walking out into the natural world is so important to me.
And if you feel that sense of unease within you,
If you feel that sense of inner distress,
My recommendation is to find somewhere that you can go and just sit and be in nature.
And don't do it as a thing,
Don't say,
Right we're going to drive,
I'm going to sit in nature for five minutes and then I'm going to drive home again.
It's like,
No,
Go and spend time,
Sit,
Listen,
Absorb,
Feel,
Connect with,
Just connect with that natural world.
So today is just a reminder that it's so easy in our everyday lives to feel a disconnect from the natural world and if you're listening to this then this is a reminder for you to step outside and reconnect with that natural world and to really drink deeply from the well of nature because that is how you will quench the thirst that is deep within your soul.
