An exciting bid to engage children with nature

Many parents find that their children resist their best efforts to get them to engage with nature. In my experience, the resistance often evaporates once the experience actually starts, but it's still bloody getting to that point.

Project Wild Thing is a film about one man's efforts to change that, both with his own children and kids in general. It's not out yet but there's a trailer at Project Wild Thing which has made me very curious.

Getting excited...

... and it isn't just the tennis, gripping though it was. I'm looking forward to my August week in the Lake District, the place which inspired me to start this blog just after my annual Easter trip there. I've never been before in the height of summer (I am not great at whole days of exposure to hot sun) so the possibility of long day walks outside the scope of a Spring or Autumn visit means some tantalising planning ( as well as high factor sun cream and unflattering headgear).

First thoughts are horseshoes - Newlands, Mosedale, Buttermere....

Then there are parts of the Lakes which, so far, I've never explored - Bassenthwaite, Blencathra, the fells south of Eskdale...

For me, planning is a significant part of the pleasure of the experience.

And there are my two new (in fact, as yet more or less untried) interests, namely trail running (I daren't aspire to the term 'fell running', that seems to be asking for trouble) and wild swimming. I have bought two issues of Trail Runner and I am about to order a pair of swimming goggles suitable for the massively myopic, which will mean I can't decently back out of at least trying both.

Bring it on!

A cliche but it's true...

... what a difference the sunshine makes. Today has been spent largely outside - pottering in the garden, watering plants which will find this much sun a challenge (ie my hostas, which look fabulous just now). Sadly my (allegedly early fruiting) tomatoes are not yet fulfilling their promise, but I await with interest. Lots of flowers but very few fruits of any size.

Of course that was interspersed with bits of the tennis at Wimbledon, that great summer landmark in the calendar. Nostalgia abounds in droves, buckets and sackloads.

Then there was an early evening run, when the temperature was just cool enough, followed by a barbecue in the garden. A tremendous feeling of well being and mainly to do with the sunshine. What does that tell me about the idea of spending the rest of my life living in Great Britain?!