Near Pelaw. The Wardley pit looking towards Pelaw Metro
A theme that emerged from many casual conversations, reading articles and blogs devoted to different topics by many hands, and my own experience, in this time of pandemic and restrictions unlike any of us have known before, has been the one of access to green space. For the vast majority, that access has to be local parks and places close to our own front doors. People had to get outside, for more than exercise; it became something vital to their mental well being. It was as if enforced curtailment drove many to recover something that was significantly beyond the reach of warnings and incipient fears. The reassurance of nature, even the trimmed grass and evenly spaced trees of public parks. Something beyond four walls and a window onto sky.
I have noticed this in myself. I needed something I have been doing as part of my life for ages, walking through landscapes, more than ever before. An hour or so litter picking around 'battlefield' produced something inexplicable but felt in myself. I felt normal.
The Guardian has a good article about this here (off site link). It's worth reading. It is a report about one sdmall example of what has been I imagine is a more widespread experience, some of this in groups but more I suggest individually. Many realise the part nature plays in their lives – or sense it even when they haven't sat down and spent time forensically examining themselves. A 'good feeling' most times is best unexamined. It is there to be enjoyed.
As someone I met on my ramble said, 'You look around and it could anywhere out in the countryside'.
Since the Covid-19 restrictions have varied according to infection spread, I have travelled to one or two sites further away but not more than the regulations allowed. I turned my attention to a few places that are in easy reach. All are re-claimed sites, previously coal mines, now landscaped and gradually shrugging off the manicure that replaced pit heaps and shunting yards forty years ago. These are complex places to 'read'. Plantations of mixed trees vie now with uninvited shrubs and 'garden escapes' and a sort of curious experiment and unofficial 're-wilding' is happening by stealth and positive neglect. What fascinates me, all this is happening on people's doorsteps; these are places alongside new and older housing estates, bisected by the odd busy road or Metro line. It's not what the purists mean when they bang on about 're-wilding' – this is for the many not the few.
A photographic record of wandering around what was for me a newly discovered site here (off site link). Spot the dragonfly!
