It doesn’t seem to matter how important getting out in nature has been for my mental health, at the moment it just isn’t the remedy I am clinging to.

I have developed new coping strategies that seem so random, but for the time being they seem to be working, getting me through the day, filling the day, but I feel exhausted.

At the beginning of last week when it poured with rain I couldn’t go for a drive and I couldn’t visit the Woodland Burial Park and it threw me into turmoil.

I still go for long drives, but I have also started having my lunch at the Woodland Park next to the lake. I would have come home with a sandwich from work, but it’s not the same anymore. I’m sure this feeling will pass, but I’m just going to go with the flow. I’ve found myself with tears rolling down my face at a tune, a line of a song, or just a memory. I don’t try to stop them, I just let them fall.

Today I woke up early as normal, but not feeling tired like I have for the last few weeks, so I pushed myself to get dressed and out the door to go for a walk.

I drove to Milford and parked up in the long stay car park. I put 4 hours on my phone payment, knowing I could extend it if needs be.

It was so quiet, the harbour and open sea so flat, with the tide out, a beautiful start to the day.

The flat water was perfectly reflecting the clouds and the sky, and the views across the Solent were beautiful.

I scanned across the gorse and bushes to find the birds. There seemed to be lots of linnets, but I couldn’t see any stonechats. This was in contrast to past years when I would have seen the reverse.

People pass by me on their walks and cycle rides, some even pass me again on their way back, but I stop to take photos and to watch the wonderful things in front of me and a short distance can take me a long time.

One of my favourite things is to watch the terns as they fly across the water, their heads pointing down to scan for food, and then hovering above the water before diving in to catch the fish.

It’s not just birds that I like to see, it’s all the plants and insects too. I couldn’t name them like I can with so many birds now, but their beauty is just as appealing.

I managed to spot some young avocets which have bred this year. A success story for the reserve over the last few years.

This morning I just kept walking and got all the way to Lymington Lido. My four hour parking had run out and I had to add another couple of hours. At this point I took the decision to walk back along the roads and paths behind the marshes to get some shade and cooler air.

The walk back was slower and uneventful, walking under the shade of trees, enjoying the sounds of different birds and the sounds of people in their gardens and the holiday makers in the caravan park. I heard the only Cetti’s warbler of the walk, which was calling for all it was worth.

I know my blog is called ‘nature walks’, but going on walks has not really been my happy place over the last few months since I lost my husband. I still like seeing the nature, birds and sights when I do go out, but getting out is proving harder to do.

The thing that seems to bring me most peace is my drives each day, just revisiting old haunts and places driven through over the last 44 years.

Today the evening drive was a little different. I took my husbands car out to give it a run around as it has been sitting in the drive, barely moving more than a couple of feet up and down the drive to be cleaned or just moved. My husband bought the car at the end of last year, he didn’t really need a car, but as he said ‘I’ve had my own car since I was 17’. And what a collection of cars he had.

Neither my husband, nor I, had any desire for possessions or great wealth, and that was very evident in the cars we bought, or were given. Once when buying a car for a couple of hundred pounds, my brother-in-law asked ‘what made you pay the extra’.

When we were going out we would either go out in my husband’s Riley Elf, or his dad’s Ford Cortina Estate. Looking back it probably depended on if his car had petrol in it, ever the gentleman he paid for our dates, but he worked as a market gardener and his pay was low and sometimes I know using his dad’s car helped him when funds were low.

Dick taught me to drive in the Elf. It was a scruffy old car, but stood me in good stead to be able to drive any car with its loose gear stick, not like new cars with easy gear change. The one draw back was the terrible smell of curry whenever the heater was on. We never did work out why.

The next car we had was a Hillman Imp. Once we drove to London to go to a party at my brother’s, with my brother in the back. Whilst we were driving my brother kept saying it was really hot in the back of the car. A coach coming up behind us kept beeping it’s horn and as my brother looked out of the back window to see why he could see sparks ricocheting down the road. We pulled off at the next turning and stopped the car outside the gates of a big house. It turned out the engine appeared to be melting, so we grabbed our things out of the car and ran up the road scared the car might explode. After a while we could see that the car was cooling down and in no danger of exploding, so we continued on to the party.

When we got engaged Dick bought me a lovely engagement ring with a sapphire. It was a couple of weeks after that I realised he had sold his car to buy it.

We had a triumph herald with a soft top. The sort that opened up in the roof. I was standing in the lounge when my husband drove it onto the drive in front of our flat. You could clearly see on the bonnet where the names of the previous owners had once been. I was mortified. I had gone to school with them. Once getting into the car after a night out, my husband said ‘we don’t have a radio in this car do we’, and with that an angry looking couple appeared next to our doors. We had used our key and got into their car, which just happened to look like ours and was parked a couple of spaces away. We laughed, they didn’t.

One morning as my husband drove to work in the early morning the soft top blew off, narrowly missing some lads in a work truck. They all stopped and picked it up. Unfortunately it was not repairable without a lot of expense, so whilst at work my husband riveted a piece of metal onto the roof. All good until it rained when the noise was deafening. We scrapped the car and were surprised that they left a cheque through our letterbox for more than the quoted scrap value. A few weeks later we saw it broken down on the bypass, metal roof and all.

We next got a Mini, but it wasn’t very reliable. When we got married the hotel receptionists, who knew us, adorned the car with ribbons, shaving foam and old shoes and we had to drive it to London to stay at my sister’s flat (a swap, as she stayed in ours for a couple of days). When we arrived at her flat my husband opened his door and the window fell out and smashed. On the way home a couple of days later the car decided it didn’t want to go in any other gear than 2nd. Whilst negotiating The Hogs Back we were overtaken twice by a car converted to hold a person in a wheelchair in the back. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on her face as she drove past us. We got home eventually.

Back in the day if you wanted a cheap car you went to a well known garage in Bournemouth. Most of the cars were rubbish, if not all. Our car broke down on the approach to the Garage, so my husband rolled it down the slight hill to the office and without mentioning that it didn’t work, swapped it for another.

We had lots of cars over the years and I don’t remember them all. The nearest we got to a ‘decent’ car was one that was about a year old just before we had our third daughter. The night after she was born my husband went to get a Chinese takeaway. He parked on the corner of the street outside the Indian takeaway and whilst he waited for the food there was a terrible noise and everyone agreed that someone must have hit a car. When he went back to the car a lorry had gone round the corner and had shunted the whole of the back of our car, totalling righting it off.

Our most loved car was our Vauxhall Cavalier which took us on our holidays to southwest France to stay at my parents house in Duras.

We had a Datsun Cherry and one morning coming out from work at 05:00 I couldn’t find it and my colleague kept saying it must have been stolen. I couldn’t believe that anyone would want to steal the old banger, but it turned out they were being stolen to order and the metal being shipped out to Russia for its scrap value.

I didn’t actually pass my driving test until I had my 4th child. My father in law said he had got a car for me and when he arrived it turned out to be a brown car, I think a Nova, but what I do know was that it looked just like a chunk of chocolate.

As the years passed we had a few more cars and my husband upgraded a little. We had a Vauxhall Vectra Estate which was the only car we ever had that had volume control linked to the speed of the car, volume getting louder as the speed increased.

My husband used to take a young lad who lived opposite to work with him. He was a shy lad who always wore a cap pulled down hiding his eyes. My husband would pull up outside his house, but as the lad went to get in my husband would move off a little. He did this repeatedly each day, I used to tell him off, but he was engaging with him, having some fun and gaining his trust. My husband said he wanted to stop him wearing his caps, to make him have more confidence in himself. He said that he was taking his driving test so we came up with a plan. We said he could have my car, which I really didn’t need, if he would stop wearing his caps. It worked and his confidence grew and grew.

Once whilst talking to his dad, he said to my husband ‘one day you should buy a car you really want’. This had never really been something we gave much thought to, cars were just a way of getting about, but when his dad died he thought on this advice and decided he really wanted a sports car that he had admired for a while. And so it was. We got the Honda S2000. We enjoyed our trips out in it, and I would go for a Sunday drive in it as well. We had a lovely holiday one year doing a tour of Britain in a week, going up to Scotland and back through north Wales on the way back. We even made detours to have a cup of tea with my Aunty in Saltburn and our niece and her lovely family in Manchester.

As the years went by my husband liked to buy a car he could get ‘stuff’ in. A few big hatchbacks fitted the bill and they were regularly filled with wood, cement or paving stones or bricks. His last car was bought before Christmas but the heaviest cargo was a lottery ticket. Taking it out for a drive gave me time to remember all these stories and many more that made up our life, and what a life it has been.

The weather has been so hit and miss and so wet it’s been difficult to fit in a walk this last week or so.

On Thursday morning I decided to take a chance with the weather, it was very overcast and a bit windy, but I headed off to the local river walk to the golf course. The day before I had seen on social media groups that I follow, that a rare shrike was seen on the golf course, so catching a glimpse of it might be fun.

I crossed the first bridge over the river and started the walk along the river. This used to be my walk to work and also a weekend walk where I could almost guarantee to see a wide range of birds, including kingfishers, kestrels, buzzards and woodpeckers. If I was very lucky I could also see otters.

Today though I had a really emotional response to being there on the river. On Sundays my husband would play a round of golf with his mates and have breakfast in the clubhouse and often on my walks I would spot them on the course. My walk felt strange, without him, even though he didn’t go on my walks. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be there and wondered whether to cut across to the playing fields on the other side of the river and go back home.

I decided to carry on, but my enthusiasm had waned, so after a short walk along the edge of the golf course I decided to go back to a bridge and cross over to the other side and take a picture looking back to the bridge. This was a view I had photographed many times and it was one of my husband’s favourite.

As I was taking my photos a lady came up to me and asked me if I had seen ‘the bird all the twitchers were watching yesterday’. I said I hadn’t, so she proceeded to tell me that the bird was back on the other side of the river, on the fairway, in some trees. I thanked her for telling me and thought, as I was here, I ought to go back to see if I could spot it. The likelihood was it would be long gone.

There were lots of birds singing in the reeds along the riverbank, and in the hedgerows and plants growing along the edges of the fairways of the golf course, but they were keeping well hidden. I could hear Reed warblers, Cetti’s warblers and whitethroats. I could hear a song thrush singing and as I walked past some trees I spotted it on the ground tilting it’s head listening for sounds of food in the grass.

As I stood there I caught a glimpse of a kestrel as it hovered over the golf course, before swooping down to the ground. It came back up again empty handed and hovered again, before taking flight off into the distance.

Another lady joined me and it transpired that she had seen the shrike the day before and showed me where. We stood for quite a while looking for it, but to no avail.

The lady wandered off up the river bank and so I took the opportunity to turn back and head home. I was still finding the walk a bit overwhelming.

I met a friend and she asked how I was doing, and we stood chatting for a while. I felt a bit tearful, but she knew how I felt,

Further along the river I stopped to watch a heron fishing, one of my favourite sights, such an amazing looking bird.

This weekend I decided that I must force myself to go out early for walks, take advantage of the sunny weather while I could (storms were forecast) and try and get back into long nature walks, and try to change my new routine of long drives.

The first trip was to Blashford Lakes. It’s a shame that the hides are still not open for viewing the lakes, but the walks through the woods are wonderful. The sound of all the birds singing in the trees is a joy and the variety of birds is amazing.

Trying to work out from the bird song, which bird is in the tree in front of you is part of the pleasure of bird watching. The songs and calls of the robin, wren, blackbird and blue tit I am confident of. The calls made by chiffchaff, blackcap, nuthatch and treecreepers I am less sure of, but when I hear a beautiful song being sung I stop and listen, scanning the branches and tops of trees to find the bird. Blackcaps have a lovely song, as do the dunnocks.

Standing under the canopy of the trees and watching for the movement of a bird and then discovering what it is can take a bit of patience, and some bird watchers will wait for a long time to get a good view of a bird. I don’t really have that desire, I would rather keep moving and enjoying the view.

After a lovely walk around Blashford I headed back home, but on the way stopped off near Sopley to have a quick walk across the fields in case there was the likelihood of a sighting of the red kite that lives in the local vicinity. Unfortunately there was no sign of it, but I did catch a glimpse of two hares scampering across the fields.

The next day I decided to drive to Weymouth to visit Radipole and Lodmore. At 6:00 in the morning the weather looked glorious, but rain was forecast for early afternoon, so I headed off.

On route, driving through the glorious Dorset countryside I took in all the views and the memories of many journeys made over the years on Sunday drives and visiting friends.

Once at Radipole I was immediately met with the loud outburst of a Cetti’s warbler, and I was still in the car park. Having only become aware of the Cetti’s warbler a few years ago, I have been amazed at how common the Cetti’s Warbler seems to have become on all my walks.

Proceeding along the path into the reserve past the visitor centre, which overlooks a large stretch of water, I could hear more Cetti’s warblers, wrens, blackbirds and Reed warblers. I could not see the Reed warblers as they were deep within the reed beds, but if I stood still the other birds would fly past into the next available tree or shrub.

At the next opening onto a reed bed I stopped and scanned along the water line and to my great surprise I could see about four bearded tits hopping from reed to reed, before taking to the air and flying off to the other side of the path.

Unfortunately I was looking straight into the sun and my photographs weren’t very good, but they still mean a lot to me.

The walk to the hide provided me with views of goldfinches, blackbirds and dunnocks and some lovely wild flowers.

At the hide I stood talking to a lovely lady as we both watched in awe as the marsh harriers, three, or four of them, rose into the sky in front of us and flew across the marsh, rising up and falling back, before settling back down in the reeds out of view.

As we made our way back to the visitor centre we walked along the path still chatting, stopping only to look at the birds on the water.

I was surprised to spot two common tern sitting on a little island in the centre of the lake.

I had lovely walks this weekend and I’d like to say that it stopped me from going on my long drives, but for the moment I will continue to do that too, as I can escape to my memories and fill up some time in the day when I don’t want to just be at home.

I have come to realise that grief has little, or nothing to do with depression for me. The feelings I have now are nothing like the way I felt when I was really depressed.

When I was depressed I couldn’t walk, felt nothing, cried a lot and had to drag my way out of it. I discovered walking and the joy of nature and my love affair with bird watching began.

Grief has attacked me from a completely different angle. The need to keep busy, the overwhelming need to get things done, but then guilt that I am doing things to the house. I know in my heart that anything I do would be totally approved of, but my head doesn’t feel that way. Going to work helps, it fills the mornings, but then there are the afternoons.

Going for my walks hasn’t really been something I want to do. I can sit for hours after waking just deciding whether I want to go out, or not, and then choosing a place to go. I have been out and the glimpses of nice birds, or a nice view can bring a smile to my face, or produce a ‘wow’, but equally the next moment tears can be rolling down my cheeks.

Going for drives seems to be the thing I need to do. Driving through familiar towns and villages, seeing the places we used to go, passing by the places we lived, just to remind me of all the good times. I now know every route to get to Sway, Brockenhurst, Lymington, Beaulieu, and feel happy that I might be driving past places that my husband regularly passed.

Going to the Woodland Burial Ground is really important to me as well. It is such a beautiful place and so peaceful.

The trips out fill the hours until it’s time to have dinner, and then, of course it’s not long until bedtime, the end of another day I’ve managed to get through.

I tried to go for a walk the other day, but I turned back half way around the marsh and went for a drive instead. Not even the views across the harbour could entice me to walk further.

Today I decided that I would drive to Martin Down, a nature reserve near Salisbury. Last time I went there my husband went with me. He never went on walks with me, but he drove me there, following a route I had picked out on my map, so that I could go on my own, knowing that I could get there without getting lost. I had picked a scenic route going through Verwood to Cranbourne and heading to Sixpenny Handley before joining the road to Salisbury. I set off in good spirits, but almost as soon as I left the bypass on the first part of the journey I became overwhelmed. I kept going not really knowing where I was going, but as I reached each memorable turn in the road, I remembered our journey together, on a day when my husband felt well enough to take a drive.

I started to panic if I was going the right way on the road to Salisbury, so I pulled into a lay-by to look at one of my many road maps. I appeared to be going the right way, so as I pulled off again I wound down the car window and stopped to talk to two men at a mobile burger van. ‘You are at Martin Down now,’ the man in the van said, ‘you can park here, or go a bit further down the road and park on the other side of the road’. Laughing and thanking them, I continued to the next car park, where I had parked with my husband a year or so before.

Despite the wide expanse of the reserve, I decided I would walk the same route we had walked together. The sky was blue and skylarks sang.

The hope was that I might see a turtle dove, corn buntings, or yellow hammers, but the cold weather we have had and it still being early in the season, meant that none of them were here or visible.

I walked for an hour or so and when I got back to the car I realised it still wasn’t even lunch time. Much too early to go home, I carried on driving taking turnings when I saw a name I recognised from previous Sunday outings and taking some routes to places I had never heard of.

Safe in the knowledge that if other people were on the roads they must lead somewhere and it wouldn’t be long before I would find myself on a familiar road.

After a quick detour to see the peregrine at the tower in New Milton, inevitably I wound up at Hinton Woodland Burial Park, but by now it was safe to go back home.

When it became abundantly clear that I couldn’t stand another minute at my work, my husband send ‘resign, do it now, write it now’. So I did and I left a few days later, after nearly 27 years, my manager not even bothering to talk me out of it, or say ‘stay a little while so you get this year’s bonus’.

We decided that I would have the summer off and then decide what I would do next.

But then it happened, my husband got ill and so the journey started of hospital stays, operations, recovery, chemo and recovery. A couple of months when the signs looked good and then it started again with more pain, another operation and then the realisation that all was not well.

We finally lost the fight on 9th February and our family lost the figure head, the beautiful, wise, funny, kind and amazing husband, dad and grandad.

We are all grieving and we are all trying to cope in the only ways we know how.

I had been with my husband my whole adult life, meeting him when I was 16 years old and we were married for 41 years. Our early life together has really come to the front of my memories as that was when he was just mine, so the memories remind me of times when life was so simple, no complications and we were in love and with all those plans for the future. We decided early on that we wanted children, so the deal was done. After nearly two years together, Dick decided he wanted to work on a kibbutz in Israel and so he set off late November 1978 for a six week trip to Elat. But on boxing day he turned up, two weeks early, back in New Milton at his sister’s house, where I was having tea, and proposed to me on the doorstep.

It wasn’t long before our family started growing with our three beautiful daughters, joined a few years later by our handsome son. Looking back at photographs Dick always looked so happy holding the new arrivals, if not a little tired from the long hours he worked to provide for us all, and amongst the photos there is even a ‘selfie’ taken with me on the hospital bed after Charlotte was born. Dick had taken selfies for decades before there was even a name for it.

I am taking daily drives around the local area, the roads where he used to live, even before I knew him, the house where he lived on the Nursery where I would visit his family to have Sunday afternoon teas, or evenings watching tv, or just relaxing days listening to music. Music has become a record of our life together and now memories for our family, when we remember the times the tunes rang out while Dick cooked the famous Sunday dinners for the whole extended family.

There seems to be a time in the afternoon where I need to go out for ‘the drive’ to see the familiar sights where we both went, to fill some time before I have to go home, when I can fill a bit more time making and eating my dinner. The rest of the day I do jobs around the house and garden that I know need doing, and more importantly that Dick and I had started and I want to be finished.0

Having left work afforded me the time to spend with Dick. When he was able to work I would go on long road trips with him making deliveries, but once he was ill I was able to go with him to all his hospital visits, spend time with him in the hospital everyday and to be by his side at home.

I will be forever grateful that we have a close, loving family with our four children, their partners and our 10 beautiful grandchildren, who all brought so much joy to our lives and were so precious to Dick, who would show anyone who would look, their photographs that he carried around with him always.

I have no words. A little over two weeks ago I lost my husband, a loving father and grandad. We shared our life together for nearly 45 years and life will never be the same again.

I was sixteen when we started going out and even though I’m over 60 and not the slim thing I was back then, he always said I hadn’t changed a bit. A cd he played often was ‘When You Were Sweet Sixteen’ by the Fureys.

My husband was kind, friendly, warm, loving, wise, talkative (all words that do not adequately describe him) and I spent my entire adult life with him, loving him, laughing with him , crying with him and singing with him. He also loved a ‘selfie’ long before anyone knew what one was.

We have four beautiful children who all have inherited his beautiful ways. We also have 10 wonderful grandchildren who will miss him as much as we do.

Dick had an ease of talking to people that I never possessed, he made friends with everyone he met and from the lovely messages I have received, I am pretty sure he stayed friends with them all too.

Life is never going to be the same, but I know that he provided us with enough love to get us through this and to keep us going. We are just waiting for a Sunday when we can all sit round the table again and toast the best man I have ever known.

Dick Pearce 17/05/56 – 09/02/21

There can be no disputing that this year has thrown everybody into some sort of turmoil, be it the lockdown, loss of business, income or job, and not being able to see family. For some of us it was already a tough year, compounded by Covid-19.

It’s been very tough to get out for long walks this year, for several reasons, but it has been a year of great sightings and some great walks.

On this post I am going to focus on some of the positive things, just to bring some joy.

We can only hope that next year is better than this one, I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

After a gentle stroll around Mudeford Quay, where I had told my husband about the great egrets and cattle egrets roosting on Hengistbury Head, upon our return home I left to go Longham Lakes where I knew I would spot a great egret. The sun was still shining, but grey clouds were looming and I knew I could get a quick walk in, hopefully before the rain began.

I parked up the road at the garden centre and walked down the road toward the Fishing lakes at Longham. I have only been a couple of times, but my first visit (to see if I could find them) on a wet and windy day I was amazed to see hundreds of swifts flying over the lakes, swooping over my head and the water, beautifully backlit by the grey clouds. Try as hard as I might I could not get a photograph of them, they just moved so fast.

Today, the sky was blue and bright, but the clouds were rolling in. As I walked down the central walk between the two lakes I could see lots of ducks on the water and on an island I could see there were little egrets and geese on the water line, and just behind them a great egret. My views were interrupted by the trees and hedges on the edge of the lake. When I spotted a gap I made my way to the edge of the lake, and being careful not to disturb anything I stood and tried to get a shot of the great egret. As I stood there a bird scurried out of the hedge out onto the water and another bird started squealing in front of me, a sound I think I had heard before, a water rail. I kept still not wanting to cause anymore alarm and just caught a glimpse of a bird, presumably the water rail, as it disappeared through the bottom of the reeds just beneath me.

I continued along the pathway around the lake and soon had open views across the water. There always seem to be a good selection of water birds and today seemed to be no exception.

There were grebes, the young still with the juvenile markings, cormorants, teal and other ducks that I couldn’t identify, mainly because of the change in season plumage.

There were quite a lot of people out today, keeping socially distant, most just enjoying the walk and views, but some, like me, were here to get views of the birds and to take photographs.

I scanned all the reed beds to see if I could catch a glimpse of another water rail, but with no luck. At the next island on the lake there must have been about 50 cormorants. When the light hits their feathers you can see beautiful markings and shine, not really noticeable from a distance. On a walk I took a couple of years ago I was shocked to pass two guys with guns , one holding a goose and a cormorant, both beautiful looking birds, presumably the cormorant was killed to protect the fish stock in the private stretch of river.

In amongst the cormorants I think there were lapwings and teal, little egrets and a large egret. As I walked on I started to talk to a lovely lady, also taking photographs and we chatted about how we became interested in birds, walking, wildlife and our joy in photography. She had taken a course and had progressed to a camera with a large lens, but was still learning. I told her I was still at the point and click stage. One day when I have more time I might have to learn how to use my camera properly.

Whilst we stood talking a kestrel flew overhead and we both stopped in our tracks to watch as it hovered in front of us.

The grey clouds closed in and the rain began to pour, and ahead of us the brightest double rainbow shone .