There is a BBC campaign going on at the moment, in fact it has been going on for quite a while, certainly back beyond the beginning of this year. It’s called “breathing spaces” and is running alongside their mental health campaign. The idea is that everyone needs a breathing space where they can commune with nature. It’s a fundamental part of us that most of us have lost in recent post-industrial revolution life.

I’m pretty sure I’m happiest when I’m up-to-my-ears in mud in the garden so I’m fairly confident that I am deeply moved by and motivated by the natural world.

My BIG problem is that I can’t sit still. I find myself, even now, after a year of CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) almost entirely unable to just sit and breathe. A year ago, I set up this as a breathing space for me. The bench was given to us by friends who were moving from a home with lots of land to one where they had a medium-sized garden but that was all, so the bench had become superfluous to their new lifestyle.

For a while, I’d trot out to my bench with a cup of tea and watch the world go by for a bit. I’d do it during the day and often then again in the evening. During the day, I’d see walkers on the hills and on the path, buzzards, lots of song birds, rabbits, horses, wild ponies, sheep, cows and more. I’d see wild flowers and the progress of my trees. I’d spot our Dorises coming and going on their mission to gather nectar and pollen for their hive. I’d basically just stay still, watching, listening and smelling my environment. In the evening, I’d sit there at dusk, watching the rabbits at silflay (is that how you spell it?) and hoping for a spot of a badger (which, by the way, never came my way, despite obvious evidence of badgers there in the mornings).

Somehow over the last few months, my use of the bench has dwindled and dwindled until now I can’t remember when I last sat on it. (As you can probably tell by the buttercups growing up through its seat.)

I have to revive my breathing space and use it again. I’m running out of control on that slippery slope to overwork and stress, which is odd given that technically I’m more-or-less unemployed. (I work between 7 and 21 hours a week in paid jobs at the moment.)

I am wandering around in the field in the evenings with my pockets full of peanuts scattering them around in the hope that the badgers will spend more time with us and that I will get to see them myself, doing badger-y stuff on our patch that we share with these wonderful creatures but never see them.

Still though, it’s all “doing” and not “being”. I have to spend some time “being”……I have to get back on my bench and stay there for a while.