Nature's medicine

I arrived at the reserve quite early this morning and once again, despite it being quite sunny, it remained uncomfortable in a chilly N wind.
I turned right at the 5-bar gate and begun to walk along "Willow Walk" and its attendant ditch. Shortly after, a burst of song from a Cettis Warbler woke me from my daydreams and I realised that I had walked the length of "Willow Walk" without registering a single thing.
Its surprising how easy it is to do that, alone in the countryside and using nature's calming ways to de-stress you. Before I retired and at the end of a particually stressful day in the office, rather than just collapse in a chair I would throw the dogs in the back of the car and go down to the reserve and spend an hour or two walking round and easing out those stresses from my mind.
I guess we all must do it from time to time, I know that I have often worked out next-day presentations walking round there, all alone and talking out loud, it can be so calming.
I remember once, around twenty years ago and after the break up of a relationship, that I went there to sort myself out and found by the time that I had arrived back at the car that I had composed the first verse of what became a ten-verse poem.

"and then came the night
when the long day
of our loving died,
all faint dreams exploding
in our weeping eyes,
as standing at the Wrens Road door
with hand held tight,
we kissed again
and said goodbye"

So sometimes being out and about isn't always about wildlife, it can sometimes be about ourselves and what we are and where we're going, and me, I even feel better for saying it.