A Walk in the Woods

I live just at the edge of London, a place that exists in a strange, wonderful limbo of both the urban and the rural. I’ve lived here all my life, and so have been in the unique position of a Londoner with easy access to a great deal of green space. Public transport is only minutes away, there are shops, restaurants, cafes and all the other trappings of urban life, and yet there are also horse’s stables, a farm, flower fields and the park, a beautiful green space of rolling fields and towering, twisting trees. It's one of my favourite places to go for a quiet walk.

Perhaps partly because of her past as an artist, my mother’s always been fascinated by trees, something which she’s passed down to me. While I was growing up, we would often go on walks through Trent Park, strolling leisurely down the paths and through the woods, my mother pointing out the unique texture or the unusual shape of a tree or the clusters of fungi growing along the trunk.

The woodland is always different every time you see it, the flowers blooming, dying and changing with the seasons, the trees’ leaves shifting through a myriad of vivid, dazzling colours, before shrivelling and falling away into brown, crunchy heaps around their roots. In a city that’s always so busy, going for a walk through the relative stillness and quiet of a forest is incredibly soothing. There are always so many things to discover and note, and yet at the same time, your mind is allowed to rest, to simply be.

Even now as an adult, nature still has its hold on me. It inspires so much of what I do and create, because nowhere can you find more unique and interesting shapes, forms and textures than nature. It’s an escape from the frenetic pace of modern life, a space to reclaim the quiet and empty of your mind of everything but what you’re experiencing right there and then. Sometimes, a walk in the woods is just what I need to quiet my thoughts.