Daily writing prompt

If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?

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Why, it would say, look for the beauty in nature to ground yourself. That is what it would say.

I find myself yearning for cold winds over rugged plains and hills, scraggly rocks, hours of exploration through misty woods and amid raging shores. I find myself yearning for the silence of the hills, interrupted by the occasional moo of a forlorn cow or the caw of an impudent crow just alighting in a tree above. I find myself yearning for trees that live as though they are governed by no man, thick woody trunks and roots weaving over each other, knobbled with age and a wisdom only hundreds of years can bestow upon them.

I find myself missing this simple thing that I used to do all the time, which I took for granted at the time, but which truly held all the treasures in life:

Waking up of a morning, in whatever season you please, and seeing sunshine. Deciding in that moment to pack a bag with sandwiches, boiled eggs, carrots sliced into thick sticks, cucumbers cut in the same way. Perhaps some apples left in the pantry and some digestives found shoved in the back of a cupboard. A sandwich bag filled with nuts, another with dates. Or raisins. Or nothing. Bottles of water filled at the cold kitchen tap. Children up, changed, breakfasted on toast, and bundled up if it was winter or prepared with wellies and raincoats if it was summer – because you cannot trust the British sunshine always – and then, mercy of mercies, all packed into a car. A blessed thing, is a car.

And then, because we lived in a town in the Cheshire countryside, a 30-40 minute drive into the country. Through windey little lanes and in amongst ancient oaks and horse chestnuts. Soon we come somewhere. A hill to climb or a forest to meander through – we park in a lay-by or a little stoney car park that is empty and you don’t need to pay because people rarely come here. Everybody is at school you see. My kids are not. We do school everywhere.

Did.

Did school everywhere.

And we would walk all day. Sometimes through rose gardens and manor kitchen gardens and along well-kept lawns fringed with espalier apple and pear trees perfectly formed against brick walls. Sometimes trek up a stoney path until we reached a derelict castle on top of a hill, from which we would be able to see the whole of Cheshire – Jodrell Bank there in the distance, Mow Cop in a different direction. Wind in our faces, heavy clouds chasing bright sunshine, biscuits and apples as our relished fuel after a long (and whiny!!) climb. Little legs and little voices and little hands slipping into mine. Then screams of laughter and playing and me lying back on the grass and staring at the vast vast sky and feeling… so free and happy.

We would get home at sunset – be that 4pm or 8pm, exhausted but happy, bone-tired in the way that would let you sleep sound and heavy. I would bathe the kids, wash them of the mud and dirt they would inevitably accumulate in their free exploration, and we would have a small dinner together. Sometimes we would watch Somebody Feed Phill with our bedtime warm milk and biscuit (tea for me, thanks) – Phill with his friendly eyes and his love of humanity (and food!). Then a story, then bed. I would fall deliciously asleep with the children, fully aware of how privileged I was in my freedom and safety.

I was a lucky girl. I was so lucky for those two years of my life. I was tired and sore and complained but my oh my, with all the glorious countryside at my fingertips – why I could walk half an hour from my home and be in the middle of nowhere – I was on top of the world.

And I miss that now, stuck here in a metropolis. We’ll find our nature but it will be short lived because you can’t make a habit of going out in 50C heat.

My billboard would say, look for the beauty in nature to ground yourself.

Because it always, always, always grounded me. I have never felt such happiness or contentment as in the times I have spent in nature. And I hope to do plenty more of it in my lifetime.