Our Connection with the Natural World by Anna Wilson
Published as part of Nosy Crow’s ongoing partnership with the National Trust, 2023 Nature Month-by-month: A Children’s Almanac is a fantastic combination of hands-on learning and entertainment, packed with information and ideas. Beautifully illustrated in full colour throughout by Elly Jahnz and written by nature-lover and wild swimmer Anna Wilson, who in this very personal piece describes the cathartic impact of connecting with the natural world and the importance of stopping to watch what is going on around us.
Our Connection with the Natural World – Anna Wilson
I have always enjoyed spending time outdoors – usually engaged in some kind of activity such as swimming, running, cycling, kayaking, and more recently surfing! But five years ago something happened to me to make me slow down and stop and really take notice of my surroundings.
My mum died, very suddenly, in the depths of winter. It was, of course, a huge shock. Suddenly I felt that I didn’t want to go rushing around any more. I didn’t have the energy or the enthusiasm for the pastimes I had previously enjoyed. Instead, I found myself going for long, slow walks in the early mornings, before it was truly light. I walked in the weak winter sunlight, in the pouring rain, and in the howling wind too. I needed to get outside just as much as I had always done, but I didn’t want to engage in any physically exhausting activities, and I didn’t want to bump into anyone who knew me – or even anyone who didn’t. I needed to walk with only my dog for company so that I didn’t have to talk and I could cry in peace if I wanted to.
It was around this time that I was asked to write the first edition of Nature Month-by-Month for Nosy Crow and the National Trust. I wasn’t sure at first. Grief had made me lose my confidence. I wasn’t finding it at all easy to write my usual brand of funny fiction for children, and I wasn’t at all certain that I could tackle something as new and involved as writing a non-fiction book that spanned a year’s worth of festivals and activities.
But actually, I realised on one of my solitary walks, writing non-fiction – and, in particular, writing a book about our connection with the natural world – was exactly what I needed right then to get me out of my slump and back to my desk. Not only could I use my daily strolls to stop and really observe the world around me, but did I not need to think up funny stories with invented characters and imagined new worlds. On the contrary, all the material I needed for the nature book was from the real world which was right in front of my eyes. The commission had come at just the right time.
The process of writing Nature Month-by-Month – a book which encourages children to connect more closely with the natural world – actually forced me, the author, to connect more closely with it myself. I had assumed I was already ‘in touch with nature’, as I had always loved spending time outdoors. But until I was put in a situation where I was no longer whizzing along on a bike or rushing to improve my 10K personal best, I hadn’t actually stopped to notice exactly what was going on around me.
And the thing that surprised me the most was that, even in the depths of winter, when you think nothing is going on in the natural world, there is so much to see! There are catkins emerging on the branches of alder and hazel trees. There are foxes that slink out in the early mornings, in the cities and in the countryside, scavenging for food. There are blackbirds hopping around the park, scratching for worms and grubs. There are solitary seals bobbing in the surf. There are kingfishers zipping along the surface of the glassy-black river in the thick morning mist. There are the tiny shoots of bulbs such as snowdrops and sometimes even daffodils, pushing up through the hard, dark soil. Wherever you live, there are animals and plants to see in winter if you stop and look.
When I was feeling particularly low, one of my writer friends said to me, ‘Just as the plants need winter to quietly get on with growing in the dark, so we writers need periods of quiet and dark to let our words germinate.’ I found she was right. Out of the winter in my soul – and the winter in the world – came a new book. And eight more, in the years that followed, for both adults and children!
Back in 2018, spring came eventually of course, as it always does. And with the longer, warmer, sunnier days came my desire to get out into the world again – to see friends, to have fun, to reconnect with human life. Which is, I know, what my mum would have wanted me to do.
The natural world has a lot to teach us, if only we’ll stop and take notice for a while. I learned that in writing Nature Month-by-Month. I hope my readers will learn some of what I did when they delve into the book and have fun exploring what nature has to offer in every single month of the year.
2023 Nature Month-by-month: A Children’s Almanac written by Anna Wilson and illsutrated by Elly Jahnz, is published by Nosy Crow in collaboration with the National Trust. www.nosycrow.com