Stop, Look, Listen

When I'm bored the first thing I normally do is turn the TV on, even when there's nothing in particular I want to watch. Watching the TV when I'm on autopilot can't be good for me and definitely isn't good for the environment. It's a habit I'm trying to break, replacing it with different habits. I'm swapping one hour of TV a week for a walk along my local canal. I'm going to try and really pay attention to where I'm going, what I hear and what I see, rather than wandering along wrapped up in my own thoughts.

Walking is great. It's good exercise, can reduce the risk of some cancers and helps with metal health too. In 2007, Mind (the mental health charity) carried out studies into how walking affects people. After a country walk 94% of people felt their mental health had improved. The study also showed that walking around a town or city shopping area tends to depress people. So walking through nature is a free way to improve fitness, health and mental well being. Fantastic! Definitely sounds better than sitting in front of the TV not watching. Don't forget that even in big cities you can always find tiny pockets of green in parks or along rivers or canals.


I started today. As soon as I got down to the canal the sound of traffic lessened and the sounds of pigeons and sparrows surrounded me. The canal still looks quite summery, especially today when it was sunny and warm. On my walk, as well as sparrows and pigeons, I saw mallard ducks, moor hens, swans and signets, long tailed tits, coal tits, a blue tit, a spider, two white butterflies and a dragonfly. All within a short walk of my city house.

Not having my headphones in (another habit I'm trying to break) also meant I heard far more than normal. Walking past hedges I heard birds cheeping an so I stopped and looked. Doing this helped me find lots more birds and pausing on the bridge to actually look at where I'd walked and was going meant I stayed still enough to see the butterflies and dragonfly.

Other than birds, spiders and insects I also looked at the plants around me. I found blackberries (almost all picked or under ripe), oak trees, haws (the lovely red berries from hawthorn trees!) and also lots of Himalayan Balsam. This last one is also know as Policeman's Helmet and Kiss-me-on-the-mountain, it's an invasive non-native weed in the UK. It has very sweet, strong smelling flowers which are a beautiful purpley pink. You'll have seen it around rivers or boggy ground but did you know their seed pods explode? I didn't. This plant has swept across the UK and is out competing other, native, species, which isn't great for them. One positive, however, is that bees really like the flowers and it seems to be helping increase the dangerously low UK bee population.



At the moment going for an hour walk is easy. The weather's still quite mild, it's nice and light and it wasn't raining today. It will get harder, I'll be much less enthusiastic when it's dark, rainy and cold in November. But starting now will hopefully mean it's a habit by then and that will make it easier. One thing I'm particularly interested in is how familiar places change over the seasons. Each week I'll take a photo of the canal to capture how it changes as the months pass.

What's around the corner near you? Comment and let me know!

Hello World

This is my first blog and I'm sure it will be the hardest. What should I say to you, whoever you are, reading my first blog for the first time?

Lets start with why I'm writing this blog. Mainly it's to help me take a closer look at my life. To explore the impact I have on my environment and whether being green means losing out or whether it can actually mean improvements for me. People start blogs when they start the gym to help them keep it up, and I'm hoping that writing a daily blog about me and the environment will encourage me to think more and green up my life. If you stick with me and keep reading you'll discover if I manage it!

I am 22 and live in Preston, Lancashire. Having recently graduated I've decided to spend 6-12 months working part time and volunteering for environment charities in my free time to gain experience in the environment sector. I can't claim to be new to environmental living, any of my previous housemates can vouch for my recycling obsession and tendency to follow people around turning lights off after them. However, having recently left home, this is my first chance to be in complete control of my life and how I choose to live it. So now comes the decisions between ready meals in plastic packaging or home cooked organic soups, between walking upstairs to get a jumper and a blanket or turning the heating up.

Each day I'll talk about an aspect of my day, environmental news story I've seen or general green topic. How it effects individuals, what the wider issues are and what we can all do to make our lives more sustainable. So if you're interested (or if I haven't got you hooked yet-maybe I will tomorrow!) keep reading.