Apparently we’re half-way through week four of lockdown three. I’ve kind of lost count in actual calendar terms as the schooling becomes second nature but some internal clock tells me this is where it gets a little tough: a bit like writing chapter 4 in a 6-chapter book. You’ve passed half-way but you’re not on the home run. You’re exhausted, it’s a slog, a chapter that takes way longer than all the others but has to be done to get to the other side.
The kids are also experiencing a chapter 4 moment, I observe – emotions riding high and testosterone rising all over the shop. I leave the three of them to it (Tom and the boys) and head out for an early morning run to try and muster my reserves before the bell rings at 9am.
It’s literally freezing and I’m grateful for the trail shoes I got for my birthday last October. They make running on icy asphalt and frozen hummocks of grass doable and indeed, a pleasure. I’m layered up in my thermals under my running kit and brief a huge sigh of relief when I get up to The Flats. It never ceases to amaze me how this at-first unassuming space has the power to lift your spirits and restore balance with its wide open vistas, wild grassland habitat and abundant birdlife.
The sky doesn’t disappoint this morning, one insouciant cloud hovering just above the sunrise, soon to be backlit with an aura of gold. The sun similarly warms the heart and boosts the energy levels. I’m solar-powered without a doubt.
The grass is crunchy underfoot and reminds me of school cross country runs in an unsuitably brief regulation PE kit and football boots across the wintry fields of Wakefield. Everyone hated these runs at the time – apart from the bits that went by or across the boys’ playing fields – but somehow looks back on them with fondness. A time before Covid. I really feel for the teenagers and young folk right now.
I’m listening to Lauren Laverne on Radio 6 as I run soothed by her dulcet tones and intelligent banter, spurred on by someone else choosing the music especially the tracks I wouldn’t usually go for, and by the promise of a chat with Robert Macfarlane after the news at 8.30am.
Robert is Lauren’s guest for her weekly Monday morning Supernature slot talking about the launch of the BBC’s new Soundscapes for Wellbeing – a new initiative that invites people to take part in a UK-wide ‘Virtual Nature Experiment’ exploring the role of virtual nature experiences to boost wellbeing during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
I’ve briefly spoken with Robert myself a couple of times, once many years ago while working at Think Publishing not long after he published his first book Mountains of the Mind in 2003 and again in 2010 when he contributed to a book I was working on with The Wildlife Trusts – Nature Tales: Encounters with Britain’s Wildlife. I was always really nervous interviewing people at that time – still kind of am – but he was really lovely and easy to talk to, just as he comes across this morning talking to Lauren about nature sounds and his books. I hold quite dear a conversation I had with him about the word ‘mesmerising’.
As I run home, Robert shares some of his favourite sounds and music from the newly relaunched BBC’s Sound Effects website which includes 33,000 sounds from around the world including 17,000 nature sounds. Trees, birds and the rain are some of his choices, a great reminder that seemingly inanimate things such as plants have sounds too especially when combined with the elements.
When I investigate the Sound Effects site later there are loads of random recordings that you can now mix together to create your own soundscape… I search for ‘beech trees’ and end up with a selection of tracks from a southern beech forest, from early morning birdsong to strong wind on a summers day.
I try it with the kids: they mix together a howling wolf, birdsong in a forest, a killer whale, a chatting parrot, a snowstorm and a cat (click to hear it!). Best fun we’ve had all week! Not quite Cosmo Sheldrake, with whom Robert worked to set some of his Lost Spells to music, but it’s a start. Beats long division first thing on a Monday anyway.