viewsfromanurbanlake.co.uk
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Views From an Urban Lake is an outdoors & Nature blog, written by Ashley Beolens, form photographing the wildlife around my local patch (the Floodplain Forest Nature Reserve in Milton Keynes) and further afield to Geocaching and Hiking.
This ill health is both mental and physical and has built over recent months, to leave me feeling stressed, drained, and suffering with mild depression. Currently I am being treated for the Stress, Depression and Anxiety, but it is the physical symptoms of dizziness, heart palpitations and occasional nausea, that are really taking a toll. While the stress is coming from multiple places (as one would expect in life), this blog is one area I can cut some stress from (not that it creates much, but every little helps). But I’m not planning on writing on here until I have the stress back under control fully.
I’ve forced myself a few times, but then haven’t posted anything about them, so to try and break that habit, and get back into posting regularly, today I’m offering up a collection of moments outside. Rather than waffle on too much (still not quite in the right head space for that I’m afraid), I’ll let the photos of the day do the bulk of the talking. Having seen a few sunsets from my window I decided to pop out one evening for a stroll around the floodplain forest. However finding all the hides in use for activities that were not wildlife related (seriously do adults need to use public hides to drink and smoke weed? )
The thing is, that nature takes your mind off self and physical and mental strife. Over time I’ve developed strategies to get my necessary fix of nature, whether it’s a drive to a place where I can sit among the trees or by calm water, or making do with a chair in the garden amongst the birds we bring to our feeders and the flowers we grow on our tiny, (mostly container) urban garden. It’s not, of course, as good as the real thing, although it can be a saviour, calming the mind and mood. Call it mindfulness, wellness or meditation, it’s an age-old practice because it is an essential need; as necessary to sustaining life as water, food or the air we breathe.
Plenty of dog walks and walks to work, but very little in the way of long distant hikes or nature walks. In 2018 I am walking 1500 Miles to raise money for CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably). You can read more about my goals on the page: Walking for Calm 2018. Please consider donating to my efforts and this amazing charity on my Walking for Calm Just Giving Page.