In the first days of a new year it's hard to avoid cliché or the routine. The New Year lull. I always feel it, that slow, readjustment back to the workaday. It's also the time for the release of a seemingly endless stream of weight loss DVDs, all manner of self-help books and whatever else can be target-marketed to tell us what lifestyle we should be aspiring to. This year there's a VAT increase and the Prime Minister's warning of 'tough times' and 'heavy lifting' in the months ahead.
With some hesitance these first few days back, I have embarked on the walk in to work. All this changed the other day. Though the morning was clouded enough to fit the prevailing mood, I saw my first waxwings. That leaden sky was all the better to see them against. There were around 25 in the trees opposite the Barclay end of Norwich City F C, their yellow tails befitting the locale. They were feeding on berries, happy to ignore the crawl of rush-hour traffic. Maybe there's something to those sporting clichés; this did put a spring in my step and just a few yards further on was a small flock of long-tailed tits, peeling from treetop to treetop, their continuous contact calls like their own pass and move, one-touch game. There were even robins singing their partisan songs in the gardens of the terraces.
Ok, so I've indulged myself in the football analogies, but all this happened and is happening. These days are all part of the seasons' fixture lists. Every day really is a waypoint, soon there will be snowdrops and blackbirds singing and while none of us can know what the year holds, simply noticing what is around me really has helped shrug off the couch-potato blight and it hasn't cost a penny.
Perhaps I'm going back on myself now, but whilst I usually wince at the thought of a New Year's resolution, I resolve to do this: I will make more space for the unscripted in life. I will appreciate the incidental, whether this is the comings and goings of the tits and finches in my garden, or even the magpie that chaks on my roof some mornings as if in fear of forgetting his own call.
It can be hard in these days of 'heavy lifting' to make space for the simplest of things. Even if you can't get out and about, why not set aside an hour of to take part in the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch. This takes place the weekend of the 29th and 30th of January. Your findings really do help track bird numbers and are a great way to get reenergised in nature.
Authored by RSPB’s Matt Howard, as seen in the EDP on Saturday 8th January 2011.