Attention attention!

I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have arranged a meeting at Dumbreck Marsh Local Nature Reserve in Kilsyth during a heatwave. What a great day to experience everything that summer has to offer there, butterflies, bees, dragonflies, wild flowers, popping broom, swooping swifts and dappled shade. But not that long ago this site was Dumbreck Colliery, which finally closed in 1967, which seems pretty recent. Back then, the site was covered in coke and coal waste and was part of the mineral railway network built to transport coal. Some of the bridges you still walk over were built for the railway but today the mining waste heap, or bing is a forest and the Garrell Burn that runs through the site has been rerouted. Previously straightened for industrial reasons, the surrounding wetland had dried out and didn't support a good range of species anymore. The addition of weirs meant that migrating fish were no longer able to access the water. Thanks to this project, the burn meanders once again, the area is alive with flora and fauna and the installation of two fish ladders means that salmon have been seen in the river in Kilsyth for the first time in 100 years!

New paths and boardwalks mean that the site is fairly accessible for all walkers and wheelers, and the sense of peace is a profound contrast to what it would have been like when it was an industrial site. It was enjoyable to take a moment under the trees in the sunlight to listen to the birds and appreciate the activity of the insects. A moment to pay attention.

I have just discovered that the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year for 2024 was brain rot. (Is that not two words? Or am I being more pedantic than usual?) Anyway, our inability to pay attention is endemic in the modern world. Apparently we rely so much on GPS these days that we're actually reducing our ability to navigate. I'm horribly aware of this when I give up and use the sat nav rather than route planning as I did in the olden days. Another instance of watching the screen rather than the world around us. At work, the constant pings of emails and instant messages drags us away from what we're doing and into another world. Social media feeds us what it knows we're attracted to and we fall for it almost every time. We're such social creature that the lure of a text message is enough to make us forget what we were doing. You won't be surprised to know where I am going with this; attention restoration theory posits that spending time in nature can help improve our concentration. Natural environments are full of a phrase I love "soft fascinations" which enable "effortless attention" and this is what I was experiencing as I walked around the nature reserve yesterday. The gentle breeze rustling the reeds, the few clouds scudding by and the sunlight producing fractals on the path. There is no end of material to read and to listen to on these topics. Ironically I often get distracted as a podcast leads to an article and on to a book often signing up to another substack en route.

I'm currently reading THREE books about how small things can make you happy; writing this blog is probably just my own version. Of course, each of these books have entries from the natural world. From the OG book on this topic, Delight by JB Priestly (Walk in pine wood! Blossom!), to the most recent, The Joy of Small Things by Hannah Jane Parkinson (Autumn leaves! Petrichor!) via my favourite so far, The Book of Delights by Ross Gay (Squirrel in a pumpkin!). In that last one, actually taken from The Book of (More) Delights, whilst he's watching the squirrel in the pumpkin, he attempts to get his notebook from his backpack to note down the delight, and with that startles the squirrel away. He notes that this "might be a small but useful lesson on the differences, or perhaps the consequences, of acquiring, versus being with, or in, or of the delight". In this instagram-tastic world it's easy to prioritise proving you were here over just being here. Wendy Cope succinctly summarises the joy of the seemingly insignificant in her poem The Orange:

"And that orange, it made me so happy,

As ordinary things often do

Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.

This is peace and contentment. It's new."

All told, I guess my meeting at Dumbreck Marsh was a big delight rather than a small one, but it was made up of many tiny delights: the beautiful new bridge over the Garrell Burn; using the word "meanders" in conversation; hearing about the soon-to-be-installed salmon sculpture, created in honour of the returning fish; the group of local conservation volunteers taking such pride in and care of their greenspace, and knowing the benefits that this brings, both for the volunteers and for nature. Maybe all big delights are just a conglomeration of small ones, and maybe the small ones are a case of noticing more. At the end of the working day I checked for any new substack posts and Kate Bowler's post "How to Fall in Love with the World Again (Even when nature is trying to kill us. Looking at you snakes.)" caught my attention. Firstly I was relieved not to be living somewhere I might get bitten dramatically by a poisonous snake in a suburban neighbourhood, but then I got very excited by the summary of the accompanying podcast with author Margaret Renkl. Her book "The Comfort of Crows" is new to me and not yet on my teetering To Be Read pile but now on my Christmas list. Kate describes Margaret as someone who pays "exquisite attention to the world" although in the podcast Margaret clarifies it's the NATURAL world she's tuned into and not so much the other parts, taking note of where she is going for example, so maybe my internal GPS problem isn't going to be solved that easily! Listening to the podcast made me grateful that I have the opportunity to spend the time noticing nature - and that I have spent the time noticing it in the past. When I met someone in the street the other day who commented on a potential thunderstorm I was able to say "there was a thunderstorm this day last year" because I'd noted it in my nature notebook. As the saying goes "the best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago, the second best time is now". As usual, the encouragement from me this month is to spend some time, either outside or from your window, just noticing; what signs can you see of the season that we're in; what variety of colours can you observe; how does the sun or the wind or the rain feel against your face, or sound against the window pane? If you would like some help to use your senses to connect with the natural world, why not join Get Walking Lanarkshire for a slow mindful walk at Viewpark in Uddingston on Monday 18th August. It's an hour long fairly silent wander with some prompts to help activate your senses. Find out more and book here. If you'd rather go on a walk alone or with friends, check out the Get Outdoors Lanarkshire collection of walks on the Go Jauntly app. We'll be adding the Dumbreck Marsh walk really soon, but there are plenty of others available in the meantime. Take it easy in the heatwave, but enjoy the komorebi *!!!!

*sunlight filtering through trees