The gift that keeps on giving
A FEW DAYS AGO, I bumped into some friends while out on a run. They were just visiting town, but the place where I saw them happened to be one of my stomping grounds as a kid – a lane next to the suburban estate where I grew up, with a stream running down one side and big overgrown banks of cow parsley and goosegrass flanking the way.
These friends had some kids of their own with them, so I did what any sensible adult would do – pulled out a handful of goosegrass stalks (we always called them ‘sticky buds’, but you might know them as something different) from the bank and threw them at someone. The kids screamed in delight. This was their first introduction to these magnificent clingy plants, with their Velcro-like burrs, which stick to clothing in a way that any child finds absolutely hilarious. I continued on my run, pleased with myself, and let my friends deal with the subsequent afternoon of weed-flinging chaos.
I don’t have kids of my own, but because I’m in my mid-thirties many of my close friends now do. Mostly I think of this as an inconsiderate impediment to my social life; but little moments like this, where you see these nascent personalities discovering some of the joys of nature for the first time, are fascinating to watch (from afar, at least) – almost like going back in time and seeing yourself from the outside.
Like many of you, I suspect, I find it very difficult to imagine how my life would have panned out if I hadn’t been let off the leash as a child by my parents – both through this local freedom to play, and through regular sojourns into the landscapes of the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales. Online connectivity now gives people more ways than ever to get into hiking and hillwalking, but research shows it is still family that plays the biggest role: when asked the question about what got them into the outdoors, the most common response is ‘parents’. And, more often than not, an outdoor habit, when cultivated young, endures over the course of a lifetime. It really is a gift that keeps on giving.
That’s why much of the content in this issue celebrates outdoor life with little ones in tow – such as our tips on outdoorsy family holidays (p28), David Lintern’s and Roger Butler’s explorations in the Cairngorms and Slovenia (p32 and p56), and Helen Teasdale’s advice on hillwalking with kids (p66).
But even if you don’t have offspring, there should still be plenty in these pages to keep you inspired on your post-lockdown adventures. Here’s to a brilliant summer!