Hello!,
Today is world environment day!!!!
The environment is something that we should all be passionate about and appreciate, and today is all about doing just that. This years theme is all about connecting people with nature. So I encourage you to go for a walk and get immersed in the natural beauty of our wonderful world, there is so much to see! If you want to do more to get in touch with nature, I have come up with a few ideas for you.
Walking in nature with your shoes and socks off
Do you remember what it was like to be a child, and experiencing things for the very first time? It was like that for me when I tried walking through nature without my shoes or socks. There is something so freeing and connecting about this! And totally hippy ;) The perfect thing for today!
Wild Swimming
Stripping off and diving into that beautiful blue lake? Daring and exciting. If this is too much for you how about a little paddle. This one is great if you are somewhere with lots of lakes, like here in Sweden. These lakes look so inviting - at least in summer. Have you tried wild swimming? Let me know your experience!
Get Your Hands Dirty in an Urban Environment
You could plant some trees locally, plant some flowers to attract butterflies or bumble bees and pretty up your balcony! Lift up that rock and see what creatures are underneath, can you identify them?
Litter Picking
The other day, I went for little walk with one of our cats and we found a secret bit of path (ooo!) just next to our apartment. We lived here for almost a year, and it was hiding there out of sight! Anyway, it led to some woodland and it was such a blissful area to go after spending my entire day working in the apartment. One thing REALLY bugged me though, and that was the amount of rubbish that was littered around the woodland floor. So I went back a couple of days later with a rubbish bag at the ready and cleaned up some of the mess. The area now looks 10x better and I can enjoy my slow, mostly standing around walks with the cats without being annoyed at the mess.
The world environment day website has loads of great ideas, check them out here. One of their ideas which I am SO behind is the iNaturalist app. Basically, you go out in nature, take a look around and take pictures of any living specimen you find. You then upload the picture to the app and the community will help you identify your observation. I definitely wish this app was around a few years ago while I was studying wildlife conservation!
I hope you find time today to go out and enjoy the beautiful nature world around us. Let me know if any of these ideas inspired you!
Sophie x