Blogger: Aggie Rothon, Communications Officer
The most recent acquisition to our household has been a shiny black Labrador called Rose. She moults massively, rolls in fox musk, digs underneath the compost bin and eats cow poo but is one of the most courteous and patient beasts I have ever come across. She is also continually positive. A motivational guru dressed with a thick tail, stocky frame and triangular ears cut from black velvet. It was only the other day that I benefitted from her buoyant attitude on a long awaited day-off.
My big mistake with 'days off' is that I pack even more than usual in to them and end up more tired than I otherwise would be. After an early start, I'd spent a morning trawling up and down the swimming lanes at the 'Victory' pool in North Walsham. After an hour or so spent there I felt less that perhaps the location name was for the slightly more ambitious than I. I do love swimming - I love the weightlessness and calm - but that day I had felt cold and resisting on the way in to the water whilst the humid, chlorine air had sent me dizzily and clammily stumbling to get changed on the way out.
Luckily, it was striding out in to the countryside with Rose on arrival home that set me right again. The sun was a lemon bon-bon in the sky, blackthorn buds sprang frothily from the hedgerows and woodpeckers bounded through the sky, laughing as they went. A stoat gambled and played just for the joy of it. He tumbled from his hedgerow climbing frame, somersaulting and chasing his tail. Everything was full of an eager freshness, the plough a shining chocolate furrow and far removed from the blue plastic goggles and stickiness of the poolside.
Rose loved it too. She was a picture of bounding health. She followed the deer trails over the fields and their plunges through ditches to the woodland. She plummeted after her ball over dew laced, rabbit-cropped paddocks and reminded me why the outdoors is a far greater pleasure than the humming, artificial world of the gym.
So stride out and take a step in to nature! It's there just waiting to soothe your aching muscles and fill your lungs with new air and vigour. Listen out for a chiffchaff arrived to sing us the song of Spring, watch for yellow-headed cowslips and creamy carpets of primroses. Nature is their for you, could you step up for nature?
Step in to nature at RSPB reserves www.rspb.org.uk/reserves. Want to do more? Visit www.rspb.org.uk/steppingup
Photo: Chiffchaff. Credit: John Bridges (rspb images)
Article in the Eastern Daily Press on 2nd April 2011.