Don’t Panic

“And we live in a beautiful world”, so sang Chris Martin and all I can say to that is, “yeah, we do, yeah, we do”.

I don’t remember precisely when, or where, it began, I just know that for my entire life, 62 years and counting, the natural world has been a huge source of joy and wonderment to me. As a tiny child I would play in a pocket of open woodland next to my house. Here I would watch birds, catch butterflies, gaze at beetles on flowerheads and listen to the sounds of the nature. I was enchanted and the spell remains unbroken to this day.

I want everyone to feel that sense of connectedness to nature. To understand that we are not separate from nature, but that we are nature. Every molecule of my being will one day reside in something else, a mouse, a bird, a plant, or a bacterium and so will yours.

 I feel incredibly privileged and lucky. I recently moved to a famous east coast headland that juts out into the North Sea. I can walk, without crossing a road, to view one of the largest seabird colonies in the UK. My ponderings and musings, as I get to know my new ‘patch’, will be the primary inspiration for future blogs.

But for now…having recently returned from a month traversing the Tasman Sea, Bass Strait and associated ports, this antipodean sojourn will provide the source material for the first few posts. I hope they make you feel entertained, inquisitive and equally passionate about our beautiful world.