Making New Discoveries
Hello, and welcome back,
Throughout this month Caroline and I have encouraged you to become more aware of the time you spend on your phone, and see if you can reduce that time. Not only does phone use—even just the presence of your phone--reduce cognitive capacity, it robs you of the benefits of ‘real’ time with those you love--friends, family members, and of course our dogs.
But if I leave it there, I’m not being fair on you. Anyone who’s spent time looking after a small child knows that telling them ‘not’ to do something just makes that something even more desirable! A wiser approach is to offer the child an enjoyable and challenging alternative, so they forget about whatever you’d rather they did not do.
The same is true for us adults. Therefore, what I’d like to do in this post is offer some suggestions you can try when you’re out and about, particularly on your dog walks. Have a go with some of the suggestions below, and perhaps modify them to suit your particular interests. Each offers the benefit of making you more rather than less aware of your surroundings:
Identify plants. If you followed my suggestions in March, you now know how to identify cloud types to help you predict the weather. Another way to become more aware of the natural world, as well as the time of year, is to learn about the flora on your walks. What type of trees do you see? What plants? If it’s a tree, what form will the seeds take? If it’s a flower, when will the buds open and what colours can you expect to enjoy?
Name colours. Sharpen your appreciation of colour. Instead of dismissing a plant’s or tree’s leaves as ‘green’, ask yourself if that colour might be more precisely described. Is it a moss green? A lime green? Kelly green, sage or jade? You can find colour charts on the internet to widen your knowledge.
Identify dog breeds. We can’t leave out our dogs! When you meet other dogs on your walk, see if you can identify the breed or breeds—and ask their human to verify your guess. We all love it when other people show a positive interest in our dogs, so who knows? You might also make some new friends!
Of course, this is only a start. There are all sorts of ways you can sharpen your interest in your surroundings and make new discoveries. Why not start brainstorming more ideas?
Until next time, here’s hoping you enjoy your dog walks even more!
Best wishes,
Linda