Lovely column, Rebecca. How serendipitous to find the tea! Message from somewhere that's for sure. Camomile is always my tea of choice, so well done!
I've taken St John's Wort in the past too - it actually seemed to work. I think it might have been Blackmore's. Can't remember. It's quite a striking flower. I'm going to do some research on Seek. I think it might be a good app to have. XXXX
Thanks, Prue! I’ve never tried St John’s Wort before, but I’ve heard lots of positive things about it as a supplement. I’m really happy to now know what it looks like, too! The Seek app is super - it can identify trees, too, and insects and birds and mammals, if they’re not moving too quickly. And it’s free on the App Store! I use it a lot, along with Merlin, the birdsong identification app.
I enjoyed this updated version. I remember reading the original and feeling like I was there with you. I’m sure I left a comment checking that you’d gotten safely ‘home’. Lovely to revisit this bit of England.
Awww, thank you so much for reading again, Beth! ❤️
I find I feel more confident sometimes when I’m in an area that isn’t familiar to me, because there’s less pressure on me to not get lost. I mean, I don’t ever want to get lost, but I feel much less of a fool when I’m somewhere I don’t know, in that I’m ‘allowed’ to get lost there, because I’ve never been there before!
There’s something extra embarrassing about getting lost on one’s own doorstep! 🤣
Loved this, RH, and "spiny restharrow" makes me think of a bird named the same. The photos are beautiful and beckoning - I would love to walk in such a place. ❤️
It was a beautiful day in a beautiful area! We’d been working in the area of the Chiltern hills, and the scenery was spectacular. The campsite was in a lovely position, and because there were power lines overhead there were lots of signs saying ‘KITE FLYING PROHIBITED’. Well, guess what? I’d never seen so many red kites - the birds of prey, not the rhomboid shapes on strings - in one place before! ‘Have they read the signs?’ I asked my Jim! 🤣 It was glorious to see so many of them up close - every time we looked up, there they were.
When I first discovered Dear Reader, I Am Lost, I began with all your rambling stories and was charmed. Not being a person who gets out in nature, I loved walking along with you having you describe the lovely terrain.( I remember one when you were hiking in a circle around a lake!) This calming story is such a perfect example. And that barley field photo! I would love to write a short story about it for Leaves. Let me know if that would be alright. Thanks for a lovely morning read - no tea at all here, just coffee, but still...
Oh Sharron, how lovely - thank you so very much! And hiking in a circle is always a good idea, I think - but only if there IS something like a lake in the middle so that I’ve always got that one point of reference to walk around. One of these days I’d love to walk around the perimeter of an island - as long as the sea stays on the same side of me, I’ll be okay, right?!
And yes, please feel free to use the picture - I’d be delighted! xxx
Such a charming, calming post! And you are so right about only letting one's guard down *completely* with those we feel safe around - I thought it was only me who did that lol. I absolutely love the look of St.John's Wort (so I planted 3 last year!) and the native version grows in a nice shrubby way here in Canada. The bees - and all manner of pollinators - simply cannot leave it alone so it's wonderful to watch them. I am now inspirited to seek it out as a tea/supplement!
This post also reminded me of "Outward Bound" a kind of military-inspired PE event, when I attended high school in the UK. I would always slink off to the back, admiring and wondering about flowers and fauna whilst others were splashing through rivers with red, chapped legs hooting and screaming in an athletic way ... Thank goodness for flowers :)
Interesting, Sue. The U.S. Outward Bound is an outdoor education program that has been around since the early 60s. Expeditions take young people (and more recently, also adults) to places around the world and across the nation. Sailing, surfing, kayaking, backpacking, dog sledding, etc. Some are a semester long, some a month, and unless they've fallen prey to more contemporary expectations, none are glamorous. It's a "roughing it" model and, as you can imagine, life changing for many participants. But always, thank goodness for flowers!
I remember the Ullswater Outward Bound place, which was very close indeed to my grandparents’ house. I think it’s still there!
I love the sound of your three shrubby St John’s Wort plants - and how wonderful that the bees are so keen on them. Hmmm, does their buzzing slow down, I wonder, if they’re feeding from those? Calm and happy bees! 🐝
I loved this. You in England are so much more civilized than we are in the US. I would never go for a walk alone for fear of male harassment-
And we have nasty ticks carrying disease so you have to be very careful where you walk. (All over the country, and many different species and also different diseases)
And poisonous plants like poison ivy that will make you break out into a horrible itchy rash that lingers for weeks.
I do walk with friends but keep an eye out for things that sting, bite, and cause skin rashes.
LOL - how lovely to be considered civilised, Julie! I have to say that I’ve never encountered any kind of harassment on my solo walks, apart from from dogs - I’m not keen on dogs, but no dog I’ve ever met seems to know that about me, and are mad keen on getting to know me, it seems.
I was bitten by a tick in March, actually, and was treated for Lyme Disease immediately, even before the test result came back (which was negative, so all was well). It’s the first time I’d been bitten by a tick, and I think actually I’d picked it up in the garden when we’d been pressure washing the paving. Luckily it was still very tiny when I found it on me, so it hadn’t been on me for very long at all.
I love it when the universe gives me messages that are so clear and straightforward! You were the OG "Keep Calm and Carry On!" girl. 😊 Thanks for taking me along for a lovely walk.
I’ve been wondering whether I am less likely to get lost in a place that I don’t know at all, because the pressure is off me to ‘know’ the way? I think that might be something I’ll explore!
The barley was so beautiful and swishy. Thinking about it now I’m reminded of that lovely Eva Cassidy song, ‘Fields of Gold’.
LOL - now, I didn’t last five minutes attempting my Bronze Award - and that was even before I’d got to the expedition part! I think D of E is an amazing programme, though. I had a friend at uni who had achieved her Gold Award, and Princess Anne had presented her with it! Really cool!
I did bronze and silver. One of the expeditions was an incredibly wet lake district and (only read on if you can cope with disgusting fact) I lost all my toenails because of blisters!!
Wow, soooooo impressed! 🙌 I’m not in the slightest bit squeamish, don’t worry. ALL your toenails? That’s hardcore! I lost a toenail in my short-lived running ‘career’ thanks to not upsizing my running shoes. First run after I’d bought them, BANG, a black toenail. Took yonks to fall off. Anyway, I went back to the sports shop and bought the next size up - much better idea! 🤣
It was the hard leather walking boots, which I'd tried to wear in, and had treated etc, but it was a lot of walking in the rain too and didn't end well!! Character building apparently!! 😂
You were my CALM Twinnings teabag, badly needed owing to various stressors. I crossed paths with you a while back I believe. So many accomplished writers and other creators on Substack have led me to behave like a kid in a candy shop. I’ll follow this one! And I like this poet’s style!
I’m certain I’m not keeping to the edge of the lake as you opined. That’s all on me. If I may interject, I realized more than a decade ago that my interactions with women were more direct, connected than with men. In work settings, leisure pursuits, and elsewhere. I offer that detail to say this essay now felt like interacting with a dear friend. I wanted to share my own experiences with Swallow-Tailed Kites here in north Florida. Or ending up midway between a mother black bear and her cubs while backpacking in Maine many years ago. All turned out well. And eating tender shoots of poison ivy in a homeopathic manner (learned from a Native American arborist). Outdoor activities have been a sustaining life force for me, so I thank you for your comments as an English Woman.
Gary, thank you so much for these words! I'm sorry to learn about your stressors, and am glad to have provided you with a small taste of calm today. 😊
Gosh, you were between a mother bear and her cubs? A perilous place to be - but you (and I'm sure they!) survived to tell the tale. And I wonder how much poison ivy it takes to cross the line from homeopathic levels to 'gosh, this was a bad idea' levels? Wow, just wow! 🌱
Sadly, Rebecca, on the poison ivy I learned some people must feel desperate for relief from it. I shared my experience with a former neighbor and she had to seek care in hospital. I don’t know if “young, tender leaves” or “small amount” were overlooked? Either way I just felt terrible and responsible for that outcome. I still eat a few leaves every Spring.
That bear experience was indelibly etched in my brain. I was both worried and fascinated. When I detected the mother bear I immediately checked wind direction, wet thumb to the air. I was downwind. Positioned against an oak tree barely half my circumference was my only concealment. Her cubs on the opposite side of the trail were behaving as one might expect of two curious children. The mother was tearing apart an old, rotted log in search of bugs and worms, assuring me I wasn’t a likely food source. 🤭 She’d shred for a bit then rise up on her hind legs and move her head side to side. Sniffing the air? In response to a distant sound? The experience lasted at least five minutes. Suddenly she dropped to her feet, sped past my location, and swatted first one cub then the other in a “get moving, now” manner. With a crackling of branches the trio disappeared down the mountainside. All in all I felt privileged to have witnessed this family of Ursus Americanus.
I’d love to be on that walk, Rebecca! It looks quintessential English countryside to this America adopted Indian:) And that teabag—what serendipity! I do believe it was a sign, if only to say perhaps that you are providing much calm to readers via this post—pictures, words et al:)
Oh, how lovely, thank you so much, Anu! Yes, it was definitely a sign. I still have the teabag, actually - it’s a bit of a lucky charm. A calm charm, LOL!
Lovely column, Rebecca. How serendipitous to find the tea! Message from somewhere that's for sure. Camomile is always my tea of choice, so well done!
I've taken St John's Wort in the past too - it actually seemed to work. I think it might have been Blackmore's. Can't remember. It's quite a striking flower. I'm going to do some research on Seek. I think it might be a good app to have. XXXX
Thanks, Prue! I’ve never tried St John’s Wort before, but I’ve heard lots of positive things about it as a supplement. I’m really happy to now know what it looks like, too! The Seek app is super - it can identify trees, too, and insects and birds and mammals, if they’re not moving too quickly. And it’s free on the App Store! I use it a lot, along with Merlin, the birdsong identification app.
I enjoyed this updated version. I remember reading the original and feeling like I was there with you. I’m sure I left a comment checking that you’d gotten safely ‘home’. Lovely to revisit this bit of England.
Awww, thank you so much for reading again, Beth! ❤️
I find I feel more confident sometimes when I’m in an area that isn’t familiar to me, because there’s less pressure on me to not get lost. I mean, I don’t ever want to get lost, but I feel much less of a fool when I’m somewhere I don’t know, in that I’m ‘allowed’ to get lost there, because I’ve never been there before!
There’s something extra embarrassing about getting lost on one’s own doorstep! 🤣
Loved this, RH, and "spiny restharrow" makes me think of a bird named the same. The photos are beautiful and beckoning - I would love to walk in such a place. ❤️
It was a beautiful day in a beautiful area! We’d been working in the area of the Chiltern hills, and the scenery was spectacular. The campsite was in a lovely position, and because there were power lines overhead there were lots of signs saying ‘KITE FLYING PROHIBITED’. Well, guess what? I’d never seen so many red kites - the birds of prey, not the rhomboid shapes on strings - in one place before! ‘Have they read the signs?’ I asked my Jim! 🤣 It was glorious to see so many of them up close - every time we looked up, there they were.
❤️
When I first discovered Dear Reader, I Am Lost, I began with all your rambling stories and was charmed. Not being a person who gets out in nature, I loved walking along with you having you describe the lovely terrain.( I remember one when you were hiking in a circle around a lake!) This calming story is such a perfect example. And that barley field photo! I would love to write a short story about it for Leaves. Let me know if that would be alright. Thanks for a lovely morning read - no tea at all here, just coffee, but still...
Oh Sharron, how lovely - thank you so very much! And hiking in a circle is always a good idea, I think - but only if there IS something like a lake in the middle so that I’ve always got that one point of reference to walk around. One of these days I’d love to walk around the perimeter of an island - as long as the sea stays on the same side of me, I’ll be okay, right?!
And yes, please feel free to use the picture - I’d be delighted! xxx
Such a charming, calming post! And you are so right about only letting one's guard down *completely* with those we feel safe around - I thought it was only me who did that lol. I absolutely love the look of St.John's Wort (so I planted 3 last year!) and the native version grows in a nice shrubby way here in Canada. The bees - and all manner of pollinators - simply cannot leave it alone so it's wonderful to watch them. I am now inspirited to seek it out as a tea/supplement!
This post also reminded me of "Outward Bound" a kind of military-inspired PE event, when I attended high school in the UK. I would always slink off to the back, admiring and wondering about flowers and fauna whilst others were splashing through rivers with red, chapped legs hooting and screaming in an athletic way ... Thank goodness for flowers :)
Interesting, Sue. The U.S. Outward Bound is an outdoor education program that has been around since the early 60s. Expeditions take young people (and more recently, also adults) to places around the world and across the nation. Sailing, surfing, kayaking, backpacking, dog sledding, etc. Some are a semester long, some a month, and unless they've fallen prey to more contemporary expectations, none are glamorous. It's a "roughing it" model and, as you can imagine, life changing for many participants. But always, thank goodness for flowers!
I’ve never liked the idea of roughing it, Elizabeth! LOL!
I hadn’t known that Outward Bound was an international organisation - I’m going to take a closer look. 😀
Oh Sue, thank you!
I remember the Ullswater Outward Bound place, which was very close indeed to my grandparents’ house. I think it’s still there!
I love the sound of your three shrubby St John’s Wort plants - and how wonderful that the bees are so keen on them. Hmmm, does their buzzing slow down, I wonder, if they’re feeding from those? Calm and happy bees! 🐝
I loved this. You in England are so much more civilized than we are in the US. I would never go for a walk alone for fear of male harassment-
And we have nasty ticks carrying disease so you have to be very careful where you walk. (All over the country, and many different species and also different diseases)
And poisonous plants like poison ivy that will make you break out into a horrible itchy rash that lingers for weeks.
I do walk with friends but keep an eye out for things that sting, bite, and cause skin rashes.
Same. There have been bear spottings here in the Pacific Northwest.
I love bears but have only ever got up close to the teddy variety. I certainly wouldn’t want to meet a real bear up close. 👀 Stay safe!
LOL - how lovely to be considered civilised, Julie! I have to say that I’ve never encountered any kind of harassment on my solo walks, apart from from dogs - I’m not keen on dogs, but no dog I’ve ever met seems to know that about me, and are mad keen on getting to know me, it seems.
I was bitten by a tick in March, actually, and was treated for Lyme Disease immediately, even before the test result came back (which was negative, so all was well). It’s the first time I’d been bitten by a tick, and I think actually I’d picked it up in the garden when we’d been pressure washing the paving. Luckily it was still very tiny when I found it on me, so it hadn’t been on me for very long at all.
I love it when the universe gives me messages that are so clear and straightforward! You were the OG "Keep Calm and Carry On!" girl. 😊 Thanks for taking me along for a lovely walk.
And thank YOU for coming with me! Happy days!
Beautifully written, as always.
Awww Terry, so kind. Thank you! ☺️
Glad you didn't get lost on this hike. Fields of barley can be disorienting.
I’ve been wondering whether I am less likely to get lost in a place that I don’t know at all, because the pressure is off me to ‘know’ the way? I think that might be something I’ll explore!
The barley was so beautiful and swishy. Thinking about it now I’m reminded of that lovely Eva Cassidy song, ‘Fields of Gold’.
I remember this piece. Happy to reread. We do receive small life hints in the oddest places.
Thanks, Carissa! We need to take these things where we find them, don’t we?
Ooh memories of D of E as a teenager!!!
Love swishy barley/grasses, and 'Fields of Gold'song
LOL - now, I didn’t last five minutes attempting my Bronze Award - and that was even before I’d got to the expedition part! I think D of E is an amazing programme, though. I had a friend at uni who had achieved her Gold Award, and Princess Anne had presented her with it! Really cool!
I did bronze and silver. One of the expeditions was an incredibly wet lake district and (only read on if you can cope with disgusting fact) I lost all my toenails because of blisters!!
Wow, soooooo impressed! 🙌 I’m not in the slightest bit squeamish, don’t worry. ALL your toenails? That’s hardcore! I lost a toenail in my short-lived running ‘career’ thanks to not upsizing my running shoes. First run after I’d bought them, BANG, a black toenail. Took yonks to fall off. Anyway, I went back to the sports shop and bought the next size up - much better idea! 🤣
It was the hard leather walking boots, which I'd tried to wear in, and had treated etc, but it was a lot of walking in the rain too and didn't end well!! Character building apparently!! 😂
‘Character building’ - ah yes, I remember THAT one…….! 🤣
You were my CALM Twinnings teabag, badly needed owing to various stressors. I crossed paths with you a while back I believe. So many accomplished writers and other creators on Substack have led me to behave like a kid in a candy shop. I’ll follow this one! And I like this poet’s style!
I’m certain I’m not keeping to the edge of the lake as you opined. That’s all on me. If I may interject, I realized more than a decade ago that my interactions with women were more direct, connected than with men. In work settings, leisure pursuits, and elsewhere. I offer that detail to say this essay now felt like interacting with a dear friend. I wanted to share my own experiences with Swallow-Tailed Kites here in north Florida. Or ending up midway between a mother black bear and her cubs while backpacking in Maine many years ago. All turned out well. And eating tender shoots of poison ivy in a homeopathic manner (learned from a Native American arborist). Outdoor activities have been a sustaining life force for me, so I thank you for your comments as an English Woman.
Gary, thank you so much for these words! I'm sorry to learn about your stressors, and am glad to have provided you with a small taste of calm today. 😊
Gosh, you were between a mother bear and her cubs? A perilous place to be - but you (and I'm sure they!) survived to tell the tale. And I wonder how much poison ivy it takes to cross the line from homeopathic levels to 'gosh, this was a bad idea' levels? Wow, just wow! 🌱
Sadly, Rebecca, on the poison ivy I learned some people must feel desperate for relief from it. I shared my experience with a former neighbor and she had to seek care in hospital. I don’t know if “young, tender leaves” or “small amount” were overlooked? Either way I just felt terrible and responsible for that outcome. I still eat a few leaves every Spring.
That bear experience was indelibly etched in my brain. I was both worried and fascinated. When I detected the mother bear I immediately checked wind direction, wet thumb to the air. I was downwind. Positioned against an oak tree barely half my circumference was my only concealment. Her cubs on the opposite side of the trail were behaving as one might expect of two curious children. The mother was tearing apart an old, rotted log in search of bugs and worms, assuring me I wasn’t a likely food source. 🤭 She’d shred for a bit then rise up on her hind legs and move her head side to side. Sniffing the air? In response to a distant sound? The experience lasted at least five minutes. Suddenly she dropped to her feet, sped past my location, and swatted first one cub then the other in a “get moving, now” manner. With a crackling of branches the trio disappeared down the mountainside. All in all I felt privileged to have witnessed this family of Ursus Americanus.
Wow, what an incredible experience! Thank you so much for sharing such a wonderful story. 🐻
I’d love to be on that walk, Rebecca! It looks quintessential English countryside to this America adopted Indian:) And that teabag—what serendipity! I do believe it was a sign, if only to say perhaps that you are providing much calm to readers via this post—pictures, words et al:)
Oh, how lovely, thank you so much, Anu! Yes, it was definitely a sign. I still have the teabag, actually - it’s a bit of a lucky charm. A calm charm, LOL!