Great Outdoors

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the wind longs to play in your hair

 - Khalil Gibran

This story should come with a warning that I love to exaggerate and for those who know these locations forgive my dramatic musings. A couple of years ago we camped on the north Devon coast. It was late summer and our first camping adventure in a van. The campsite was all but empty and we were offered a choice of pitches and being the romantics we chose to wake up to a sea view, we had tea and settled in for the night. There then whipped up a storm that made me reconsider the sense of parking on top of a cliff edge, it was not a good nights sleep for a nervous and novice camper like me. I was all for giving up and going home in the morning, though I tried to keep these defeated
feeling hidden from company.

When a walk along the coast was suggested I jumped at the idea to be back in my comfort zone again. With my feet firmly planted to the earth and the wind at my back, I forgot the terrors of the rocking van in the night and set forth on an adventure. This secret cove was my reward, a paradise lost in every sense and re-energised by its discovery I gathered my strength again to walk down the hundred or so steps and onto the beach. I know these don't sound like the greatest challenges in the world but being slightly phobic of incoming tides and cliff edges that one can either fall of or get stranded on, it took a lot of inner cajoling to get my feet planted on that sand (especially after the night before). But it was worth it (even the wasp sting aside) because for a brief moment we were just one with that place and the world outside was forgotten, with all its care and tribulations.

So today (which is a public holiday here in the UK) take yourself out, even if its only for a 5 minute break and whatever weather greats you, whether the storm or the sun kisses your brow, embrace it and feel the delight in it, cease the day and enjoy nature in all her glory.