I used to love exercise but these days, I'm less Runner Bean and more Couch Potato.
Shameful I know, but I have inherently become a sofa person. Give me a book, a candle and a hot mug of tea any day. I believe in relaxation, I appreciate the benefits of chilling, and I protect my downtime with a strength of mind that matches any athlete.
I have no mid-life yearning for a peloton in my spare room, no aspiration to run a marathon (or even a half marathon) and I would be perfectly happy if I never saw the inside of a gym again.
But as much as I love my sofa, I do peel myself from it to walk the great outdoors.
I spent much of my teenage years avoiding walking anywhere. Petulantly asking, if anyone suggested a walk around the village or the nearby reservoir, ‘What’s the point in that? You only end up where you started’.
As a teen I would have assured you that there are no benefits to walking round in circles. Consequently, if you’d have told me thirty-five years ago that I’d be choosing a stroll down the canal over a high energy workout, I would never have believed you. Yet the more I walk, the more I realise how partisan my perception of walking has historically been. It is, I have found, not just the arena of dog walkers, or the unfit easing themselves into exercise (although I do fit both of those categories if I'm honest).
I want to pull aside the teenagers who, like a backscattering from my past, mope behind families. I want to extract their earbuds, redirect their eyes from the screens in their hands to the canvas they walk in, beg them to open their minds to what is all around them.
But why should they? They will discover nature in their own time. For she waits for us all. Patiently biding her time until the day we wake, draw back our curtains and feel compelled to don a Marks and Spencer Gillet, pull on a pair of flat shoes and set off to appreciate the changing seasons and breathe the air.
Just like I did. And when I did, I discovered a joy that I didn't know I was missing. A joy capable of pushing life's problems away - if only for a while.
There's rarely a walk where joy doesn't appear, whether wandering a woodland, a windswept coast, or the grounds of a stately home.
Why? Well, science aside, I believe it's all to do with humanity.
We are part of the human race. The most widespread species of primate. We are blessed with complex brains that have enabled the advancement of language. We have developed infrastructure, economy and technology. But we are actually really quite small. Quite insignificant. And sometimes - stupid; we swarm the earth, warring, fighting, continually striving for better, needing more, greedily taking all that we can. Destroying one another, disregarding anything in our way.
And whilst we do all that, nature quietly adapts to the world we live and share - proud and majestic, mocking our intelligence.
Nature may not have our intelligence, but she has strength in beauty. A beauty even more beautiful because it is born from a need to survive. As humans, attaining our goals with intelligence, beauty has no purpose other than vanity - and vanity itself is not beautiful. Nature's beauty is necessary for survival, a tree's bloom must attract pollinators, a flower's scent must entice the bee. A butterfly relies on its bright wings to warn off predators. A bird defends its territory with beautiful song.
But nature's main predator is us. And consequently, it is us she must woo more than any other. Beauty, and the tranquillity and joy it brings, is nature's defence against human destruction. Nature has to make us feel good, has to benefit us, has to stupefy us so we don't completely destroy her.
I am incapable of truly describing the effects, mental and spatial, that nature's hypnotism bestows upon me when I spend time outside. All I know is that in her presence, my mind expands beyond the lock up of stress and worry. My limbs stretch beyond the prison realm of my body. My spirit lifts towards the watchful eye of infinite sky. My dreams feed on the possibilities of never-ending ground.
It turns outs, even Couch Potatoes need nature's helping hand to flourish.
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