It is funny how messages come together and you know you are being told something.
During the week we received a note in tremulous handwriting from Gill. We did not know here but she wrote: ’I have derived so much pleasure and comfort recently wandering around the park. It is a lovely place with something for everyone from little tots stamping in puddles, athletic types and old grannies. I enjoy the lovely old trees, especially the great oak and spring flowers’.
How marvellous.
Michelle Howarth and others have reviewed the literature which confirms the benefits of gardens and gardening for health and wellbeing: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/7/e036923
Just being there in the open air, seeing and hearing and smelling and feeling what is all around invigorates body and soul. Engaging with the soil and plants to tidy or plant or prune, stirs up a special personal dialogue.
Sarah came back from a walk, beaming with pleasure at the sound of trees in the gentle breeze of the early afternoon. Differing sounds according to the tree.
And a friend has sent a link to a wonderfully instructive and peaceful programme on the susurration of trees: The Susurrations of Trees – BBC Sounds
There is powerful interest in the benefits of involvement in nature. This is given additional energy by the learning which has come from the deprivations of lockdown.
A lesson not too late for the learning – and it applies most surely to the frail and vulnerable.
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