Morning Glory

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Footsteps Conversations
Footsteps Conversations
Morning Glory
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I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t enjoy the sound of bird songs. Nature’s Choral Symphony is celebrated in May with International Dawn Chorus Day- the first Sunday in May. What has been inspiring is that not only have I just discovered this, but something else exciting too, this being the Merlin app to help identify bird sounds recommended by a friend who had commented on my blog. 

About a couple of weeks ago, I visited Foxley Woods near East Dereham, Norfolk, well known for its best display of Bluebells in this area. It had been on my visit list for years, and I was determined to walk through and photograph the display for one of my early May posts. The display of Bluebells was stunning, even if the walk to get to them took over half an hour. The walkway was well signposted and took you on a circular walk with signposts, so it was easy to navigate and not get lost.

Having mentioned bird song in my last audio, I thought it would be nice to record some bird sound, which I did in the woods- thinking this 35-second clip would be featured here. However, this is where this blog has a mind of its own and where one step leads to another for more discoveries. 

Once home, I searched ‘ birdsong’ on my phone’s internet and discovered that there are mental health benefits to listening to the birds as well as learning about International Dawn Chorus Day. It just happened to be close to the next release of my post. I thought it was perfect timing, why not get up early and record some bird song to feature here.

So, on Saturday, I installed Merlin the Bird Sound app and was all set to identify what birds I have in my area. I know there are many house sparrows- our bushes are alive with them, house martins, bluetits, blackbirds and our faithful collared doves and pigeons.

If you want to find out more about bird songs and why birds sing in the early morning and International Dawn Chorus Day, take a look at the RSPB site here. It explains everything so well.

Having checked the time of sunrise on my weather app, I set the alarm for 05.15, and once it went off, I saw the morning was already light, and thought, am I too late? However, once outside, I realised there were still plenty of birdsong. We have robins, but they like to catch the first light, so I didn’t hear any of them. I was so excited to know we had wrens somewhere outside our front door and a Linnet detected along the Green to the back of us.

I spent several minutes outside, once this audio here had finished and found this a great experience. What initially was an outing to Foxley has led to discovering something else, and this is what I am enjoying the most about writing and recording for this endeavour.

If you would like to discover more about the mental health benefits of listening to birds, I have included some references here.

The Natural History Museum:

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-listening-to-bird-song-can-transform-our-mental-health.html

King’s College London:

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/feeling-chirpy-being-around-birds-is-linked-to-lasting-mental-health-benefits

Why not get up at dawn for a short walk and try this for yourself. Happy listening!

Walking Towards Small Victories

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Footsteps Conversations
Footsteps Conversations
Walking Towards Small Victories
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I wasn’t going to use this recording, my first open-air one, unscripted back in February because of my usual hesitancy of saying is this good enough? Yes, I am plagued by perfectionism.  When I played it back, I thought the wind was too loud at the start of the recording. However, having listened to this more than once, to capture the essence of what I was trying to say, I felt it conveyed several important messages, which I want to share today.

One of the key statements I made was that I did something, despite something else. We all know our fair share of adversity and travelling to Suffolk, when life was feeling particularly tough in the rain, may not seem much of an achievement, but to me it was. I had promised my family a winter retreat and I delivered what I had promised. Two cars packed to the rafters, with baby things for my grandson and renting an eco-cabin ( Air B and B for three nights) seemed quite an adventure for this hardly adventurous individual.

Nothing was going to stop me/ us enjoying ourselves and my specific aim was to get to Flatford Mill and photograph the famous painting scene by John Constable. So, on that first morning, I put my walking boots on, skirting the largest flooded dip I had seen, I left the family in bed and found my way to the mill before the heavens opened again.

I got out my phone and pressed play, not knowing quite what I was going to say. Point number two, I surprised myself by being spontaneous. There were a couple of other people quite close by but it didn’t matter. I got my message out there that you can hear now.

I realised then that I rarely let myself or people down. I can dig in and pull small and bigger things ‘out-of-the-bag’. Determination and stubbornness (the latter I’m sure I get from my father) can win the day, if used in the right way. 

Last year, I drove to Salisbury, the longest trip I have ever done on my own. The year before was my first adventure by taking myself on a 24-hour trip to the Lincolnshire Wolds. Using an app, I found my way around a Tennyson walk. I got lost briefly but when I had completed the circuit and got back to the car, I felt so elated I had done it. 

I am learning to embrace small victories and just need more courage and cash to say I am becoming a little explorer. This is the biggest thing I need to permit myself to do. It doesn’t have to be travelling half away around the world. England is just fine and I am pushing my boundaries in more ways than one, every day not just in the physical domain but within my mindset as well.

I might be aged 60 but I want to feel like a small child again with that sense of wonder and curiosity. Childhood was such ‘serious stuff’ with one parent having a significant mental health diagnosis for all of it. There was never fun and joy, and this script was soon transported into the adult world where life was serious, with duty, commitments, responsibilities and being sensible.

Writing this I realise why I have always wanted to fly like a bird. To just take off and be free to go wherever my imagination takes me. My hope is for many road trips ahead with a child’s mind at the wheel. If my friends see me, do give me a wave. 

Pausing Your Morning Steps

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Footsteps Conversations
Footsteps Conversations
Pausing Your Morning Steps
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Mornings- I have read quite a bit about them and this time of the day appears to have many benefits. Personally, my relationship with mornings is still in development. I associate myself with being an evening owl (having spent years working evenings when I was younger as a nurse on the twilight shift). Therefore, historically I don’t consider myself a morning lark.  Yet, I cannot deny that there is something quite magical about the hours between 06.00 and 09.00 when I decide to savour them.

For me, leading a busy self-employed life as well as being a new grandmother, mornings are without doubt my favourite part of the day. Now, it is 06.15 and I feel quiet and relaxed and there is silence away from all the ‘noise’ of a typical day.

Some of you may have heard of a book called ‘The Miracle Morning’ by Hal Elrod. Its central message is that a morning routine, which involves rising early is a key factor in personal success and happiness. Certainly, there is no denying that from all the successful people I have read or personally have known in some way, they are all ‘morning’ people. The research into the most successful people’s habits confirms this.

Having a morning routine, which involves structure, discipline and getting ahead in your day undeniably has advantages. I have known past mornings of chaos, lethargy and not wanting to get out of bed, and there is nothing worse than to start a day like this. However, I never really subscribed to the ‘Miracle Morning’ book for one key reason that being I didn’t like the rigidity and the pressure it conveyed to me. The rising at 5 am with the exercise, scripting, reading and so forth felt too overwhelming. Some of the reviews I read from people (feeling stressed and under pressure if they could not manage it) were negative for me.

So, I have chosen a middle ground. I set no alarm clock unless I need to get up of course for something specific. I allow my body to wake up when it is ready. Often, it is early, and the times vary. I have one or two dedicated practices, including drinking water as soon as I wake because our bodies are dehydrated after a night’s sleep. I also listen to my Darren Daily Mentorship audio newsletter on weekdays. Often, I spend several minutes in silence, just listening and doing nothing at all. Sometimes I start work before I go downstairs. I may write, read, or just listen to the radio on BBC Sounds. I have even got up and done a brief walking circuit around my estate.

Yes, I agree this is a luxury and I am fortunate to get to choose how and when I work and how I live. For most of my life, it wasn’t like this, and I too had to get up for shifts, children and the time pressures life give us. I think if I could turn the clock back though, I would have done my mornings differently. I would have allowed them to be times to pause, even for 10 minutes. To give myself the space for a bit of self-care, however, brief that window of time might have been. I didn’t and I regret that but I’m making up for that now.

So, I would encourage you to evaluate your mornings. Is it working? If it is then great but if it isn’t, experiment with it and try out something different. You might be surprised. Be flexible, allow yourself to rest and stop because often that’s when the best ideas and insights of something will show up.  Get up a bit earlier to get ahead, even by a few minutes, if you need to get something important done (and you will feel great for doing that) but don’t beat yourself up if it didn’t happen as intended. Try a different approach next time and see how it feels. I still juggle with what works for for me, but the word Pause within this time is non-negotiable.

A Spring in My Step

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A Spring in my Step

“Behold, I saw Spring in all its new seasonal beauty by the contrast of the blue sky, laced with the white-friendly cloud of the cumulus. The blue flowers joined in with the heavenly colour, welcoming with equal vibrant gladness the glory of this Easter Monday. 

This first day of April saw me striding out of Winter’s tunnel. How long it had been. I had tried to smile through it but sometimes the winter walls of thickness bored down on me, however much I rose to push it away. I was never good with Winter, and even though I manage it better now, nothing lifts my step with a spring more than spring itself.”

Extract from Helen’s nature notes ( 1/04/2024)

Reading about the countryside, walking in it, observing, and then writing about it in my nature journals has transformed my ability to manage my winter feelings and my attitude to this season. The increasingly typical English winter, dull, dark, cold and dismal, and this year of an exceptionally wet February and March bears testimony to this description.

I wish to make known here my past dread of winter and why. How it reminded me of grey feelings, fog and depression. This was just more than Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). The increased appreciation of nature and the effect it had of lifting my mood, along with walking (known to improve your mental health) had a positive compound effect. The more I savoured each month and looked at what it had to offer, the more I could feel joy. This led to a gradual shift towards appreciation of every climate, rather than the dread of the clocks going back each year in October.

When we were in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started to walk every day within our restrictions of movement. I started to photograph what I saw on my housing estate, a bud, a tree, a clump of colour. One evening I photographed how many cats I saw. I posted them on my FB page, and I was so surprised at how many people enjoyed seeing my 30-minute walk-in pictures. When I stopped, I found out later how much people missed these posts.

Now Spring has arrived. Nothing pleases me more than to step outside and to still find hidden delights of nature on what is the outskirts of both a town and a housing estate. My walks start on what used to be a World War Two airfield- a runway strip of dust and uneven concrete, nothing romantic about this ramble. The newly built mound of earth to my right houses a water supply. An artificial spot of green, like a giant carbuncle that shouldn’t be there.

 Further along, trees had been cut away for the MacDonalds just on the roundabout. I walk past to my left, next to scaffolds and barriers. A new housing estate where a field was. I look back to my right and hear the Chiff Chaff by the farmer’s field still left which can be seen out of my third-floor bedroom window. You can find beauty even with bricks around you in an urban area if you look hard enough.

 Nature will not be silent or defeated and it still feels victorious to me. I photograph the flowers still growing on this circular route that I walk so often. I eagerly looked out for the Snowdrops in February and there they were.

 All my walks represent expression and freedom. These two words are what I value most, the expression to be who I want to be and the freedom to execute this in action.

Yes, I still prefer spring over Winter, but I now have a tool kit of mental health support I give to myself when late November/December greets me, and I shall write about this more in the autumn.

For now, we have longer nights and warming days. I am grateful to be here, to be alive, to see and hear the Chiff-Chaff by the wide-open fields still left and breathe in a new day.

Originally published for Wednesday’s walk on 17th April. Republished today after accidental deletion.

I am still learning to navigate this site and whilst trying to prepare my next blog I hit the wrong button. The main message here is, it’s OK to make mistakes, we can correct and re-trace our steps. The important thing is to keep going.

The First Walk

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Footsteps Conversations
Footsteps Conversations
The First Walk
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“Science and Art are both fed by the Natural World.”

For me, Science tells us how things are made or achieved, and the laws that govern how things can be created.  Art inspires us to imagine what can be made, to discover in our minds what could be possible. All we need is a dose of imagination, the stillness of a quiet place to allow our senses to wander and to believe that anything is possible. From a poem, a story, a book, a picture, a sculpture or other works of art, to an experiment or invention we can create something meaningful. This spans throughout history and something we can claim in our present moment. There are no limits as to what could be possible, given the will and determination. We can do this with any aspect of our lives. We just have to choose what we want.

“Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.”

This blog is one such creation at the very beginning. My pen is the artist’s brush and my mind is the library of information that will help me shape the finished design. Life’s experiences have taught me that there is so much I don’t know and want to discover while I still have time left here on Earth. Footstep Conversations I hope brings both the science and the creative processes to help soothe and aid our well-being and mostly to give us some peace and joy in this frantic world that we live in.

Quotations:

1) Grounding Finding Home in a Garden Lulah Ellender page 62 2022 Granta Publications, London.

2) The Monk who Sold his Ferrari; A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams and Reaching Your Destiny. Robin Sharma. 1996 Harper Collins Publishers.