The Week in Green

I've been thinking about setting up on Substack for a while. Of course, this is a new venture and things are likely to evolve. I'll be sharing creative ideas about nature and environmental issues, expanding on the types of things that I've been blogging and tweeting about for many years. In the first instance, everything will be free and most content will always be free, but I'll be moving to paid subscriptions, once I've worked out what to include in paid posts. (Encouraged by a generous pledge from a long-standing reader of my blog!)

June is a great time to start thinking about nature and creativity, in the UK at least. This is the month when many aspects of nature are at their richest, most noticeably birds, who are singing and bringing up their young, seemingly everywhere around us. It's also the month with the longest days and the best hope for good weather. I imagine that's why June was chosen for the Wildlife Trust's 30 Days Wild campaign. This campaign, celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, encourages us all to spend time outdoors and to do one 'wild thing' every day. You can either sign up on the website or do your own thing! The first week of June is also International Nature Journaling Week, which encourages participants to create a nature journal for the week. The website offers prompts to look at nature with new eyes and to stimulate your creativity, as well as profiling experienced nature journalers. It's also the time when BBC Springwatch hits our screens with its usual mix of nesting birds, and other wildlife encounters across the UK.

June is also the beginning of the Big Meadow Search, which lasts until the end of August, encouraging people to record the plants they find in meadows. I love the buttercup meadows along the Water of Leith at this time of year

I hope to be able to take part in the Big Meadow Search, though I won’t be surveying the meadow above, as it’s far too marshy for me to feel safe walking around. Most years, this meadow has a good show of Common Spotted Orchid, so I’ll be keeping my eyes out for those in the next few weeks.

Here in Edinburgh, the month started with two outdoor events, the biennial Corstorphine Fair, which took place in St Margaret's Park on Saturday and the Meadows Festival, an annual event, held on the Meadows. We were very lucky with the weather! After weeks of rain, Saturday brought glorious sunshine. Both events included music, food and a good number of second hand stalls, selling all sorts of things, the Meadows Festival being a particularly good place for browsing for a second-hand bargain whether you're looking for vintage Japanese tea sets (in surprisingly plentiful supply), woodworking tools or children's games. Not to mention second-hand clothes. I bought this beautiful jacket for £10.00

Once I got it home, I discovered it had a rip in one of the seams in the lining, but that will be easily fixed (I hope!) Next week it will be Leith Festival and the week after sees the Canal Festival. These festivals all offer the chance to enjoy the great outdoors, though generally, the closest you get to experiencing wildlife is making friends with some of the many well-behaved dogs that wander round with their owners.

One of the classes I'm currently teaching is a nature writing class for a mental health project, taking place in Edinburgh's beautiful Royal Botanic Gardens. We've been lucky with the weather for this too, it hasn't rained on any of the sessions so far! As a result of teaching this class, I was interested to find a documentary series about famous gardens, on BBC Alba (the BBC's Scottish Gaelic channel). So far I've only watched the episode on Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens, but if the rest of the programmes are that good, it will be well worth watching the whole series.

The Scottish Gaelic language is struggling, but its influence can be seen all around in the Scottish landscape. The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park website has a comprehensive seeming resource on the park's Gaelic culture.

I've just finished reading The Dinosaur Hunters by Deborah Cadbury, an entertaining and informative look at the lives of many of the people who were instrumental in discovering the first dinosaurs and grappling with the conflict these creatures caused between science and religion. Well worth reading.