Wry journey into Russia’s past

wrong clothes. And the Right Trousers, by allowing you to sit and watch for hours in the drizzle without becoming sodden, are central to Barnes’ approach – because essentially Rewild Yourself is about learning to be part of nature. To learn the art of what he calls the Bottomless Sit, where you are motionless, silent and observant, for long stretches. “We humans are busy creatures ... We have a terrible fear that if we stop for a moment we will miss something. The exact opposite is true.”

At the beginning, he notes, most of those who settle in for a long wait are keen to spot something interesting: a badger, a roe deer, a kingfisher. But, he advises, “Many a sit will bring only the ordinary everyday wild things – but you find that you have moved a little closer to all wild things than you were before. You are becoming less an observer of the wild than a living part of it.”

This is such a simple, clever book. As if he were passing the baton, sharing his love of the wild, Barnes is taking a step towards engaging others with the planet and its inhabitants. When we properly take notice of our living non-human neighbours, we make the radical shift from seeing nature as separate from us come to realise that this is a shared world. That, for good and ill, “We’re all in it together”. To reach this understanding is surely a giant step towards helping to treasure, and protect, the living world.