Kate Humble
In times of crisis and uncertainty, the beauty and peace of the natural world is a constant source of comfort and joy, says TV presenter Kate Humble
As the country continues tight restrictions, we all long for a time when we’ll be able to leave our homes and reclaim our freedom. Fingers crossed that this will be sooner rather than later but what to do in the meantime as cabin-fever may well have started to take hold?
“Rejoice in nature,” says Kate Humble who is currently presenting A Country Life For Half The Price on Channel 5 on Tuesday nights.
“It really makes me feel hopeful, even though life is pretty bleak at the moment. I appreciate it’s easy for me to say this. I live in the countryside, in the Welsh hills, where there’s plenty of space but city and town dwellers can still reap the benefits – especially when it’s springtime and the weather is good. Getting some fresh air, looking at blue skies, even from a window, and flowers and trees coming into bud, watching birds and listening to bird song can all help lift spirits, make you feel more positive about life and bring a sense of peace, even when things are difficult as they are now.
“Nature is on our side and will do her best to cheer us. We all need that connection to the natural world and it’s not just me saying it. Science has proved there are benefits. It lifts our bodies, our souls and makes us feel like we belong in this world.”
Kate feels that, ultimately, good will come from the present situation.
“There is less pollution, less noise and more peace. It’s like nature is coming back into its own. The world is re-booting. It’s as if the planet is saying,
‘You know what? You’ve pushed the envelope too far.’ I don’t know… maybe it’s happened so we’re forced to take stock. We’re needing to re-group, find out what’s important, what matters to us all and start again.”
Coincidentally, the families featured in A Country Life For Half The Price are doing just this in order to live a simpler life. And the timing couldn’t be better for us all to do the same – in whatever way we are able.
“Again, maybe the planet and nature are trying to tell us something,” Kate goes on. “We’ve been confusing simplicity with convenience but actually convenience robs us of the things that make us happy. Cooking meals from scratch, growing plants and vegetables, mending things, making things. We just haven’t been doing that as a society by and large. We buy and eat convenience food, throw things away when they break and order new items which arrive the next day. There’s not a lot of satisfaction in that – it makes you feel wasteful, almost grubby in a strange way. None of it brings happiness, satisfaction and a feeling of being rooted.
“People look down on manual labour and they shouldn’t. There’s something incredibly satisfying about manual tasks that give you an instant sense of achievement – like walking into a mucky stable or a mucky barn with a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow and cleaning it out. It’s hard work and you
‘Nature is on our side and will do her best to cheer us’
sweat and you get filthy but with every forkful you’re making a tiny difference. It’s a little sense of achievement. I know it sounds completely daft but it’s like cleaning out a cupboard or doing the housework. You do it and you instantly see the results of your labours, whereas so often you can spend hours in front of a computer and feel like you’ve achieved very little.
“So that’s why I love manual labour. I love weeding my garden for the same reason. It’s back-breaking and not terribly exciting but the sense of achievement and the sense of having done something really useful at the end of it is great.” It doesn’t have to involve cleaning or getting dirty, either.
“We have these amazing tools attached to our arms called hands that can do useful, wonderful things,” Kate smiles. “Like knitting, sewing, cooking, crafts... old-fashioned, simple kind of activities that take time and aren’t a quick fix. Comparisons are being drawn between what’s happening now and life during the war when nothing was wasted or thrown away. Back then there was also a real sense of community that helped everyone get through it. Obviously we’re not able to be together at the moment but that sense of community, that feeling of pulling together is still present – albeit through social media in many instances.”
Kate (51), however, can’t wait to start being with people again.
“Nothing beats interacting with people face-to-face,” she smiles. “That feeling of human contact – smiling, laughing, chatting, socialising, working together.”
For now though, she’s riding out the storm like the rest of us. About a month ago she announced she was cancelling the courses she runs on the 117-acre working farm and thriving rural skills centre where she and Ludo, her husband of 28 years, live.
“We don’t want to think of this as closing down, because our farm is a working farm and, like farms all across the UK, it will keep going,” she explains. ‘It may be quieter than normal but the everyday jobs, looking after the animals and the land will continue.
Life goes on.”
We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
■ A Country Life For Half The Price, Channel 5, Tuesdays 9pm