Nature

I need the outdoors, a lot. I have been inside for two days now, nursing a poorly child and I feel claustrophobic, dry from the indoor heat, a bit foetid and unclean. The sun has come up today, bright neon and as round as a lollipop, promising to thaw the light ground frost and provide a day to be happy about. I'm itching to get out there, to ride a horse and feel the sharp wind across my face, or plant the tulips which are still un-bought at the garden centre or go for a stroll to the garlic woods looking out for animal tracks and holly berries.

Sometimes just getting the logs in from the shed is enough to satisfy the outdoors urge. Walking up our tiny garden when its dimpsey, or even dark, the dusk is alive with noises and the air chilled, which feels pure, making me want to take great lung-fulls.

I am going to get close to big nature next week, I can hardly believe it. I almost don't want the experience to arrive as the anticipation is so thrilling. Off to Kenya to see a great friend, to ride with the giraffes, to feel small against the rawness of Africa and her wildness, and her majestic mountains.

I like Lord Byron's words a lot:

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.