.
overfeed your pet worms or they will start to smell. If the food layer doesn’t appear to be going down, remove some of it and leave them to work their way through the rest. Feeding them little and often is best. And please don’t allow the box to become waterlogged as the worms need to breathe; only add water if the wormery begins to look too dry.
It should take about eight to twelve months for the wormery to fill up. Separate out the worms before using any compost, and start the wormery again with the top 20 cm (8 in). Enjoy the many benefits of your wriggly pets.
Go for a walk. As you move along, tune in to your sense of hearing. What can you hear? The noise of traffic, bird song, people, dogs barking, the wind rattling, the sounds of your own movements – your breath, the rustle of your clothes?
Stop still in your tracks. What can you hear now?
Close your eyes and retune. What noises can you detect in the distance?
Keeping your eyes shut, listen in close. What else do you hear?
Experiment with shifting your focus from nearby to the distance, as if sonically scanning your surroundings.
This simple exercise can be a great way to centre yourself for a moment wherever you are.
‘The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.’
HENRY BESTON (1888–1968), The Outermost House
When I take the dog for a walk, it’s usually an opportunity to think and unwind. However, it can have the opposite effect when I find the track covered in rubbish. Sometimes, it looks as though somebody has had a party in their car, then chucked everything straight out of the window.
Still, there’s no point complaining without doing anything about it. Although the presence of litter can act like permission for other people to start treating a place like a dump, happily it doesn’t take much to reverse the trend. Everyone can make a difference by doing a bit of clearing up; what’s more, it leaves you with a nice smug glow, knowing you’ve done your good deed for the day.
Have a go; maybe start by picking up one piece of trash a day, and – if you catch the litter-picking bug – go online and see if there are any local clean-up schemes you can take part in. You’ll get to enjoy some fresh air, meet new people and leave the world a better place.
Not bad for a rubbish day out.
A lot of the time we’re advised to switch off phones and electronic devices if we want to find peace and calm. However, there are ways in which modern technology can be an asset when it comes to connecting with nature. I, for one, enjoy taking photos with my phone when I’m out walking, and sharing the images on social media. I’ve even been known to stand on mountain tops with an iPad, clicking away.
My photos aren’t masterpieces by any manner of means, but pausing to take them means stopping in my tracks and taking a good look around – at the quality of light, the play of shadows, plant life, birds, animals, insects and the weather. All the same, I make sure I don’t just look through a lens – that the device doesn’t remain stuck in front of me like some sort of oblong obstacle – it’s a back-up: first I see something beautiful or striking, then I use the camera to capture the moment, not the other way round.
You could start your own record of images of nature, printing out your favourites and sticking them here in your journal, or sharing them online. Perhaps set yourself a challenge and take a photo a day for a week or a month? Your images could be of anything: the pattern raindrops make on glass, the way lichen speckles a wall, or a stunning view. Why not stick one of your favourite photos in a frame?
There’s something especially satisfying about patterns and geometric shapes that occur naturally. Think of the five pips arranged in a pentagon at an apple’s core or the perfect hexagon of a bee’s cell in a honeycomb – a shape as strong in construction as it is lovely to look at.
Another well-known example is the shell of the sea mollusc known as the nautilus, which grows in a logarithmic spiral, whereby each new chamber of its shell is bigger than the last one by a constant factor. This pattern is similar to the mathematical Fibonacci series, in which each number is the sum of the two that precede it (e.g. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8). Snails and many other molluscs build their shells in a similar way.
Other naturally occurring shapes and patterns include waves, lines and tessellations. Imagine the ripples of sand on the beach where the tide has recently gone out, or the sleek, overlapping scales of a fish. On a particularly freezing day, ice flowers of frost can form in fractals – geometrical patterns repeated on every scale – on window glass.
Look for signs of nature’s symmetry and note down or sketch what you see.
One bright winter’s day, I was walking along the beach when I came across some stunning rock art. Now, this beach is part of England’s Jurassic Coast, famous for its fossils, but the art hadn’t been created by cavemen. In fact, I don’t know who made it – although I’m glad they did.
Somebody had carefully balanced huge pebbles on top of each other to create sculptures looking out to sea like a row of Easter Island heads. A single push would have toppled each of them over, yet every person on the beach that day walked round them respectfully, smiling.
The low Sun cast the sculptures’ long shadows over the surrounding rocks and sand. When the tide came in, the stones would have inevitably been tumbled by the waves. So while the sculptures were monumental, they weren’t intended to be permanent; yet the sight has stayed with me ever since.
The next time you find yourself in rocky surroundings, perhaps you might be inspired to create your own pebble art. You could stack your stones or arrange them in a spiral – whatever pleases you. Don’t pull apart an existing stone wall or construction to source your materials; just make use of whatever you find readily to hand, in the knowledge that your creation might not last but it’ll still be a work of art.
The countryside around where I live is dotted with ancient earthworks – from Glastonbury Tor to prehistoric hillforts that rise like slumbering dragons from the fields. Carved into the landscape, these ancient settlements and burial grounds often feel charged with a special atmosphere, as though they’re indifferent to our modern comings and goings.
Of course, most towns and cities are situated on the sites of much older settlements. Even a new town such as Milton Keynes, founded in 1967, is built on land rich in Stone Age and Bronze Age archaeological finds. With a little bit of research, you too can uncover the antique roots of the place where you live.
Find out whether there are any particular landmarks in your area, or sites mentioned in old records, and visit them. Make a note of what you discover – recording the historical