Last week I planted my own stress relief.

My partner and son were away on holiday and, unexpectedly bereft, I decided that a spot of gardening would be a decent outlet for my nurturing instincts.

(Plus it turns out that cradling a 10kg bag of compost satisfyingly fills the hole where a baby should be.)

(Whether or not I gently rocked said compost to sleep will remain my business.)

So last Monday, I went down to The Secret Garden Centre and got trolley-happy with the Mediterranean herbs and other smelly plants — oregano, thyme, mint, lavender and more lavender.

Within the space of twenty minutes and twenty quid, I’d transformed our front step into a sensory garden, designed for maximum fragrance, with plants specially chosen for their stress-busting scents.

Now, every time we leave the house, I make sure to bend down and rub my fingers through the thyme or lavender (check for bees).

I hold my hand up to my face and take a deep inhale. Ahh…

This week, I’m telling the story about what happens when we take that whiff of plant.

Welcome to the third episode of my Summer series: Smell.

(If you’ve just joined us, why not inhale my previous episodes on Sight and Touch — your parasympathetic nervous system will thank you!)

Oh, and look out for me crowbarring in a world cup reference ⚽🏆

OMG: Smells Get Into Your BLOOD

Did you know this?

Those of you who did GCSEs might remember these guys:

Sing it all together: ALVEOLI!

Possibly the most satisfying word in the English language, but also cup-shaped cavities in the lungs are where oxygen jumps (technical term) from your lungs into your bloodstream.

But here’s the crazy thing: it’s not just the oxygen. SMELLS JUMP TOO.

Including nature smells like my miscellaneous lavenders.

In fact, loads of different trees and plants are constantly pumping compounds (called VOCs) into the air.

It’s the VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that make the lavender smell lavendery.

When you run your hand through a patch of lavender, it’s not just air you breathe in — VOCs come along for the ride.

That smelly air makes it way into your lungs and some of those VOCs jump from the alveoli into your BLOOD.

This lavender-enriched blood then circulates through your body, and those same VOCs can be measured again in your exhaled breath.

And what gets into our blood, gets into our brain — but more on that in a sec.

First, grab your trowel. (You don’t need a trowel.)

Your Turn: Become a Sensory Gardener

So far, my challenges to you have been lowkey: watch pollinators for five minutes, touch wood for ninety seconds.

All well and good — and genuinely therapeutic — but today’s challenge will completely change the way you live your life (a bit).

Today’s challenge is to grow your own sensory garden. (Don’t worry, we’ll start very small.)

First of all: a few myths to bust:

1. You don’t need an actual garden. We don’t have a garden: we have a front step and a neighbour upstairs who isn’t bothered that we’ve turned it into a sensory step.

2. You don’t need loads of money. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Plants do. Take a look at your neighbours’ gardens. With their permission, rub a few leaves between your fingers. I bet they have a plant that smells good. Ask them if you can take a cutting.

3. You don’t need green fingers. The plants I’m going to suggest are some of the most robust plants out there, (mostly) built for the rough and tumble of the Mediterranean climate: sun, drought, poor soil. And if you kill them inside 3 minutes — so what? Start again.

Okay, great. Now, here’s the challenge:

1. Choose one of the following plants, most suitable to your situation (I’ve italicised ones that we’ve tried and tested in pots in London):

   Indoors: Scented geranium, lemon verbena, Cuban oregano

   Front step: Rosemary, thyme, dwarf hinoki
   Sunny: Rosemary, lavender, juniper

   Shady: Bay laurel, lemon balm

   Rainy: Lemon balm, sweet cicely, mint

   Oops-forgot-to-water: Rosemary, juniper, thyme, lavender

   Large patio: Bay laurel, juniper, dwarf hinoki

   Actual garden: Scots pine, juniper, bay laurel

   Complete beginner: Mint, lemon balm, rosemary

2. Go out and acquire one specimen of your chosen species. You’ve got at least two options here:

   1. Buy from your local garden centre. A fairly well established pot of mint, thyme or rosemary shouldn’t cost more than £5.

   2. Take a few cuttings from a friend or neighbour and either (a) ask them what to do next or (b) find a Youtube video for that plant — like this one for lavender.

3. Proudly situate your new plant on your front step / tabletop / patio / balcony.

4. Sit down next to it. Rub a few leaves between your fingers. Take a deep inhale of that wonderful scent.

5. Repeat step 4 for two minutes every day.

6. If you’re enjoying yourself, repeat steps 1-3 once a week through the summer.

Your goal here isn’t the gold medal at Chelsea Flower Show. It’s to create a tiny sensory garden within arm’s reach.

For your stress levels, for your immune system and — why not? — for the bees.

How Does It Work? (The Sciencey Bit)

Nice smelling plants like lavendar, rosemary and oregano are high in chemicals called terpenes — specifically pinene, β-pinene, and d-limonene.

Scientists (not them again!) have found that breathing in these chemicals has a direct and positive impact on our stress levels across multiple measures, including, in one 2019 study, heart rate variability and alpha brainwaves.

Yep: your brainwaves get calm after sniffing plant.

On the one hand: no massive surprise — that’s aromatherapy, a therapeutic practice so ancient that Pharoahs were known to indulge.

But it’s astonishing how even miniscule amounts of these mighty molecules reduce stress in a fully grown adult human.

The chart above shows the effect of different levels of terpenes (measured in ppbv: parts per billion by volume) in the air breathed by 59 experimental volunteers.

As you can see, compared to zero (the top bar in the chart), as little as seven parts per billion already has a supportive effect on your freaking out emotions.

Seven parts per billion is vanishingly small: picture one football team (not including substitutes) in the entire population of China.

⚠️WORLD CUP CROWBAR CLAXON⚠️

Our noses are SUPER sensitive. And what you smell changes your brain chemistry.

So, go on — sniff a plant today!

Go Deeper

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this newsletter possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

If you enjoyed today’s story, then go ahead and tell me. It’s the only way I’ll know. You can tap the heart button, write a comment, share the newsletter with friends, or simply reply to this email.

If you want to go deeper, I am in the process of putting together an 8-session therapeutic nature connection programme that will run in September and October in Southeast London.

Reply if you’d like to hear more.

‘A special and unique way to experience nature in London.’ – Julie

diwyc,
dc

Imagine you’re on fire.

Not metaphorically, like when you’re ‘on fire’ after two espressos.

Fully on fire, like a volcano or a candle.

I know, right? — bad day.

But just when you think the worst is over, a man with a knife and a big beard comes along and skins you alive.

Not many humans are coming back from that.

But there’s a tree in Crystal Palace Park that LIVES for this kind of abuse.

Do you know which?

Welcome to the second episode of my Summer series, this week on the superpower of touch.

(The first episode on Summer Sight is here — go read it, it’s totally fine!)

OMG: There’s a mammal that can FEEL different textures down to 10 NANOMETRES — it’s YOU

Yes! Your very own fingertips can detect the difference between ridged surfaces that vary in height by only 10 nanometres.

To get an idea of how freakin’ awesome that is, here are some other things that are 10 nanometres in size:

• 4 or 5 strands of DNA.

• 1 antibody in your immune system.

• The membrane wall of just ONE of the 200 million cells in your eye.

If they were laid out on a perfectly smooth surface, you could detect the difference between one antibody protein and two.

For reference, you have QUADRILLIONS of antibodies inside you right now.

If you’re still struggling with getting this (I know I am), try this analogy from one of the study’s authors:

If your finger was the size of the Earth, you could feel the difference between houses [and] cars.

What the actual heck. Human touch is unbelievably sensitive.

So let’s use it, shall we?

Your Turn: Touch Wood

This is the cork of the cork oak — the tree to which I alluded in the intro. (Did you guess right?)

Its waterproof, fireproof, bubble wrap bark insulates the tree from forest fires, drought and insect attacks (but not from winemakers or the manufacturers of cricket balls).

Not only that, but the cork oak’s miracle skin can fully regenerate even after humans strip its bark for their bottles.

To my touch, the cork of this (unharvested) cork oak is rough, almost prickly, but soft to a fingernail.

It feels utterly unique — but so do the barks of the yew, bay, birch, cedar and oak that are its neighbours in this woodland wonderland.

Bark is not just protection; it’s variation. The bark is a record of how each tree meets the world: sinuous, smooth, flakey, scaled, ridged.

The range of textures is a feast for my fingertips.

And so this episode’s therapeutic practice is simple:

• Go into your local park or woodland.

• Touch — and really feel — as many different varieties of bark as you can.

• Make sure you put skin to bark for at least 90 seconds each time.

• Report back :)

p.s. If you want to start identifying your trees from their bark alone, try this excellent mini guide from Tree Guide UK.

How Does It Work? (The Sciencey Bit)

A 2017 Japanese study found that touching bare wood (white oak in this case) ‘calms prefrontal cortex activity and induces parasympathetic nervous activity more than other materials [stainless steel, marble and tile], thereby inducing physiological relaxation.’

I hearby give you permission to have a bit more fun than the 18 study participants:

If it works in the lab, you’d hope it’d be a dash more effective in the park. Bonus points if you want to go barefoot.

Go Deeper

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this newsletter possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

If you enjoyed today’s story, then go ahead and tell me. It’s the only way I’ll know. You can tap the heart button, write a comment, share the newsletter with friends, or simply reply to this email.

If you want to go deeper, I am in the process of putting together an 8-session therapeutic nature connection programme that will run in September and October in Southeast London.

Reply if you’d like to hear more.

‘Uplifting, peaceful, calming and restorative.’ — Gry

diwyc,
dc

Somewhere in Southeast London this week, a bee landed on a flower blazing with ultraviolet lights invisible to every human walking past.

Welcome to the first episode of my Summer series, which this week will focus on our precious sense of sight.

Coming at a rate of about once a fortnight, future episodes in Summer will touch on our senses of hearing, smell, taste and, well, touch.

I’ll also be releasing a special Summer Solstice edition featuring a top secret supersense to celebrate the longest day of the year.

But today: the eyes have it.

This week I mistook rosemary for lavender. Again.

(Luckily not in front of clients. And I wasn’t telling anyone to eat anything.)

What I saw was a Mediterranean-looking shrub with narrow silvery leaves, woody stems and purple flower petals.

I combined that observation with the context, a raised bed in a park, and with my dangerously minimal knowledge that there are a lot of species of lavender (true — 47 at last count) and some of them look a bit different to your classic English Lavender (okay, not that different).

All this led me to exclaim to a prospective business partner: ‘Lovely lot of lavender there!’

Very politely my future colleague murmured, ‘That’s rosemary’, and I styled it out by pretending I meant the bush next to the one we were looking at.

Also not lavender.

My baby son would never have made this mistake.

At seven months old, what he sees is shimmering grey-green movement, dancing vertical purple shapes, flickering sunlight, waving textures and shifting shadows.

No individuation, no labelling of this and that. One continuous image.

Who’s to say which is the more valid observation?

I’ll tell you who else wouldn’t have seen what I saw: bees.

OMG Bees See Invisible Patterns

Behold the humble dandelion!

On the right: what a human sees — monochrome yellow.

On the left: what a bee sees — an ultraviolet bull’s eye.

Flowers were never really made for us. We’re accidental spectators. They evolved in synchrony with the insects that pollinate and propagate them.

The human-vision yellow of the dandelion doesn’t reveal anything to us about its internal workings.

The bee-vision bull’s eye on a white background shows the bee exactly where to forage for nectar, and helps the plant pass on its pollen for the next generation.

Entire conversations are happening in colours we never evolved to perceive.

If you want to see loads more amazing examples of what a bee sees, head over to Bjørn Rørslett’s crazy site. Ten minutes of wow.

Your Turn: Watch Pollinators Visiting Flowers For Five Uninterrupted Minutes

How often do you actually sit still and observe something in nature?

Probably not very often unless it’s something really awesome like a solar eclipse or an golden eagle getting mobbed by crows.

The last time it happened for me was on holiday in Spain last week.

We stood in awe watching literally hundreds of butterflies gorging themselves on the nectar of a bougainvillea.

Every time we moved, the bush exploded with startled Red Admirals.

Awesome.

But I didn’t have to go all the way to Spain for this kind of magical experience — it’s right on my doorstep.

All summer long, bees, butterflies and hoverflies flit around the pots piled up on our path. (Embarrassingly enough, they love our rosemary.)

This week’s practice is to watch your local pollinators at work for five uninterrupted minutes.

Don’t get out your phone or camera. Just watch. Five minutes. You can take pictures after.

1. Find a patch of flowers. They don’t have to be big and flashy. Try hedgerows, your local park, street trees, or even those stubborn ‘little yellas’ that grow through the cracks of a wall in an abandoned corner of town.

2. Stand or sit still for five minutes and watch the pollinators at work.

3. Notice what you’re seeing. What does what we call a ‘bee’ or a ‘wasp’ actually look like? Can you tell one individual from another? What flowers do they choose? Does their foraging follow a pattern?

At first you’ll think nothing much is happening.

If you get distracted, you’re right — this is boring. So don’t worry. Just gently bring yourself back to the pollinators and you’ll start to notice.

One bee becomes three.

A hoverfly appears motionless in mid-air.

A small white butterfly drifts through like ash.

Suddenly the patch of flowers is not decoration but infrastructure. An airport. A marketplace. A living system vibrating at the edge of your attention all along.

If you were a pollinator, these would be your favourite conditions:

• Late morning to early afternoon.

• Warm — insect pollinators tend to be cold-blooded and need to warm up before they can fly.

• No more than a gentle breeze. Air traffic is grounded in too much turbulence.

• Dry. Even better: dry after a couple of cold or damp days.

But having said all that, different pollinators evolved to tie down different ecological niches and there will always be someone up and about.

Bright and early this morning, around 7am, I spent a jolly five minutes watching a smattering of bees, wasps, and even a tit of some sort rummaging away in the dingly-dangly blossom of a sycamore and in the hawthorn and ivy entwined around the old tree.

Somewhere near you right now, a bee is navigating by colours you can’t see toward flowers you’ve never properly noticed.

Summer is happening whether we pay attention or not.

Go Deeper

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this newsletter possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

If you enjoyed today’s story, then go ahead and tell me. It’s the only way I’ll know. You can tap the heart button, write a comment, share the newsletter with friends, or simply reply to this email.

If you want to go deeper, I am in the process of putting together an 8-session therapeutic nature connection programme that will run in September and October in Southeast London.

Reply if you’d like to hear more.

‘It was like a mental reset.’ — Matt

diwyc,
dc

There I was: a balding middle-aged man in a big orange coat making hoo-hoo train noises as loudly as I could in a public park at night — only somewhat legitimised to bewildered joggers by the nine other people listening to this middle-aged man making hoo-hoo train noises as loudly as he could — all in the vain hope of attracting an owl.

After a few minutes, I turned away: ‘Well that didn’t work,’ I said. ‘Good thing I enjoy embarrassing myself in public.’ Everyone laughed politely.

And then...

Happy Belated Spring Equinox, Night Owls 🦉

For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m an outdoor instructor, Expeditions Manager at British Exploring Society, and Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Guide (in training).

In 2026, every edition of this newsletter will give you one nature-based practice you can use right now to develop a deeper connection with yourself, with others, and with the world around you. 🌱

On Friday evening, in celebration of the spring equinox, I led my third night walk of the year in Crystal Palace Park.

These longer, sunnier days in London meant that there were many more people enjoying twilight in the park than there had been in January.

Friends and lovers sitting on benches, watching the sun go down, staying longer than perhaps they intended to, all for the pleasure of nightfall in this peaceful corner of the metropolis.

As you walk from Crystal Palace bus station onto the park’s Italian terraces, you’ll meet two old birch trees standing sentinel on the hilltop, their lank tresses wafting in the gentle evening breeze.

I call these two birch ‘The Old Lovers’. In Celtic folklore, birch is a symbol of love and fertility as well as renewal and purification — the perfect tree for spring.

Between the two birches is a bench and on that bench were two friends listening to music, singing, laughing, shouting for the equinox.

As we walked deeper into the park we passed strollers, dogwalkers, runners, cyclists, and two teenage girls, one of them breathlessly reading aloud a message she’d got from some young suitor on her phone: ‘I’ve always admired you, your gorgeous hair…’

Spring is springing!

Horse Chestnut Fireworks

One of the most thrilling displays in our parks right now is the sight of horse chestnut candles blooming.

These flamboyant flowers are a slow-motion firework explosion and what’s fun is that you can often see the candles in different stages of inflorescence on the same tree.

In Crystal Palace Park, we’re lucky that three young horse chestnuts have been planted in a cluster in the English Landscape Garden near the rusty laptop (if you know, you know) so you can get a real eye-to-eye, royal box view.

You don’t want to miss it.

I recommend you go back daily: watching, waiting, anticipating…

On Friday evening, I was just about to introduce this trio of horse chestnuts to our equinox night walkers when, faintly, we heard a hooting from afar.

We stopped and held our breath.

Way off, in the trees up by the reservoir, was a tawny owl. Its call not unlike a sort of ghost train.

We stood transfixed, a male calling for its mate. But the sound faded and we moved onto the chestnuts, grinning.

The night was clear and mild: we could see 715 million kilometres all the way to Jupiter and beyond, past Gemini and Orion, over a thousand light years away to Alnilam, the central buckle on Orion’s Belt, a star 28 times more massive than our sun.

With over 3,500 trees, Crystal Palace Park is a forest and, together in the growing dark, we marvelled in awe at some of my favourite trees — the grove of Yew, the Cork Oak, the Cedars of Lebanon and the Giant Sequoia.

It’d already been a marvellous walk, but walking back up the hill towards the trees where we’d heard the owl calling, I couldn’t resist to call back with my owl whistle.

And so there I was: a balding middle-aged man in a big orange coat making hoo-hoo train noises as loudly as I could in a public park at night, in the vain hope of attracting an owl.

As I turned away in defeat, we heard the faintest of replies — but it could easily have been traffic from the road. Then, as we laughed at my buffoonery — the owl was above us, calling right back.

Scarcely able to believe our luck, we went back and forth, he and I, between human and beyond-human. A hoo-hoo from me and a hoo-hoo from him. Until, finally, I couldn’t bear to keep him any longer and we walked back toward the lights of the city.

This Week’s Practice: Owl Calling

You don’t need to call for an owl yourself for this practice to work. Listening to owls calling each other is magic enough.

If you do decide to try calling for owls, then please don’t call for too long and don’t go to the same area too often. The male’s hoo-hoo is a territorial call and you might stress him out by calling back at him for too long.

Always let the owl win.

Preparation

• OPTIONAL: Practice your best twoo-twoo calls, or buy a birch wood owl whistle — they really work!

• Get to know your neighbourhood tawny owl on the RSPB website.

Practice

• Find a promising broadleaved woodland nearby, one with mature trees. In the city, look for an old park, cemetery or garden.

• There are around 50,000 pairs of tawny owls across England, Wales and Scotland (but not Ireland) and they stay together in the same area for life. Even in the city.

• March is a great time to hear owls calling because it’s mating season and the males will be defending their territory from interloping young Romeos (or middle-aged men with whistles).

• Time of day: early evening twilight and nightfall is perfect.

• If after three or four nights you don’t hear owls in your woodland, then try somewhere else. Assuming you’ve got a decent ear and you stay quiet, at this time of year you’re almost guaranteed to hear an owl if there’s one floating about.

Why This Practice Works (the science bit)

• Interactions with birdlife, including owls, are linked to lasting improvements in mental health and wellbeing, even among individuals with depression, by fostering positive emotions and reducing anxiety (Hammoud et al., 2022; White et al., 2023).

• These benefits arise from multi-sensory engagement with wildlife, including human-animal interactions like owl calling, that enhance our restorative experience of an environment and deepen nature connectedness (Zhang et al., 2025; Yerbury & Lukey, 2021).

• Human-animal interactions can also promote feelings of love, belonging, fulfillment and perspective on our lives, all of which contribute to psychological wellbeing and encourage caring for nature (Yerbury & Lukey, 2021).

• Positive human-owl coexistence in urban or woodland settings can foster meaningful relationships with wildlife that benefit both human and owl (Parker et al., 2025).

Let me know how you get on!

Upcoming Night Walks + Whatsapp Group

Many thanks to Crystal Palace Park Trust for commissioning this spring equinox walk, funded by the National Lottery — yes, my first paid night walk!

If you would like to join our next London night walk, please reply to this email or join the Whatsapp info group by clicking here.

Night Walks London Whatsapp Info Group

I have already submitted a proposal for a longer series of night walks in the summer evenings. Later in the year I shall also be running Night Shift Journey, where you can join me on a dusk-to-dawn therapeutic night walk through the New Forest.

Reply to this email to get on my informal early bird / night owl list for personalised notifications as these bigger, scarier events bud and blossom. 🦉

Thank You

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this newsletter possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

If you enjoyed this one, then go ahead and tell me. It’s the only way I’ll know. You can tap the heart button, write a comment, share the newsletter with friends, or simply reply to this email.

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As always, thank you for your eyeballs and thanks for your support.

diwyc,
dc:

One of my bugbears is the popular insistence that the UK has four neat and tidy seasons of three neat and tidy months each.

We don’t. Especially not in the south, and especially not with rising temperatures playing merry havoc with our biosphere.

Both astronomers and meteorologists follow the 4x3 rule, but disagree on where the seasons divide.

Astronomers follow the eternal rhythm of solstice and equinox, meteorologists follow the rhythms of climate. Both bow to the inevitable diktats of data science.

But most of us are neither astronomers nor meteorologists — and certainly not data scientists. We are humans. We measure seasons by how our world looks and feels.

Are there leaves on the trees? Wildflowers in the understorey? Birdsong on the air?

Is it still light when I cycle home from work?

Do I need my big coat?

In England, Spring is on average two degrees warmer than it was in 1970. This has had a significant knock-on effect on how ‘Spring’ looks and feels in this country.

So it’s time we updated our seasonal definitions.

Behold, then, what I will call The Optimist’s Calendar:

• Spring begins when you first spot crocuses, daffodils, catkins or any other signs of life in our hitherto hibernating plantlife: usually sometime in mid to late January, but at the latest let’s say 1 February (Imbolc).

• Summer begins when the clocks change to British Summer Time (clue’s in the name): the last Sunday in March.

• Logically, then, Autumn begins when the clocks change back: the last Sunday in October. (This may sound late, but I’m happy as long as Autumn includes both Hallowe’en and Bonfire Night.)

• Winter begins when you open the first door on your advent calendar: 1 December.

That gives us two months of Winter, two months of Spring, one month of Autumn, and a glorious seven months of Summer.

For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m an outdoor instructor, Expeditions Manager at British Exploring Society, and Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Guide (in training).

In 2026, every edition of this newsletter will give you one nature-based practice you can use right now to develop a deeper connection with yourself, with others, and with the world around you. 🌱

Find Your Umbrella Tree

Last Friday, I led our second Night Walk around the gorgeous forest of Crystal Palace Park. (If over 2,500 trees doesn’t make a forest, then I don’t know what does.)

The weather was almost comically bad: a bright day growing overcast in the afternoon, with the first spots of a certifiable downpour falling as I stepped outside at 6pm.

It rained steadily for the whole of our walk. And stopped as we crossed the threshold home. Soon after, the stars were out.

Credit to those who came; no shade at all on those who postponed.

Three Good Reasons It’s Even More Important You Go Outside To Play In Crappy Weather

If you’re reading this, you’re probably already convinced of the positive effects of spending time in nature.

Not surprisingly, however, most of us feel at least a little disinclined when we hear the first spots of rain on the windowpane or see oily puddles forming on the pavement.

But scientists have done the studies. Nature works in all seasons.

The tragedy is that we humans both underestimate the benefits of inclement nature connection and overestimate our discomfort.

Deep down, you know this is true, right?

If you’ve got the right clothes — and you feel safe enough from lightning, high winds, tree fall, hurricanes and so forth — you will always feel better for the walk.

And, actually, there are at least three good reasons why going out in the rain is even more important for us than going out in the sunshine.

1. Winter has the crappiest weather and the least amount of sunshine. Our mood and immune systems are already at their lowest. Staying indoors will only exacerbate that. Go outside!

2. Rain stirs up an earthy chemical called geosmin. The detection of geosmin is one of our human superpowers: we can detect the equivalent of one microgram in a full bathtub. It’s (maybe) how our ancestors found water in the desert. Go outside!

3. The pitter-patter of rain on tree leaves is a gorgeous natural soundscape that has been shown to improve mood, restoration and cognition. GO. OUTSIDE.

Which brings me onto today’s nature connection practice.

This Week’s Practice: Find Your Umbrella Tree

One of the practices that we did last Friday was at the Umbrella Tree: an old Holm Oak that sits perfectly flanked by two pink sphinxes on the Italian Terraces of Crystal Palace Park.

The spreading canopy radiates around the trunk just like an umbrella and provides welcome respite for the bedraggled night walker — not only from the rain, but from the constant stimulation of modern life in the city.

This week, I encourage you to find your own Umbrella Tree.

Preparation

For this practice you will need to find a tree with a dense spreading canopy that you can stand beneath, sheltering you from the elements.

The best contenders are, clearly, those that do not drop their leaves in winter.

The Holm Oak is a splendid candidate — with bonus points for their low-hanging branches that allow a foothold for the intrepid treeclimber.

Other suitable trees include Yew, Holly, Laurels and Cedars. Even a well-proportioned bush will do the trick.

Pines are FINE, but tend to funnel the rain right down your neck.

⚠️ Please don’t panic if you’ve wandered around your local park for half an hour and still not found a suitable tree. You’ve already won: half an hour studying trees is more than enough to get all the juice of nature connection. Go home and have a brew.

Practice

1. Take a moment to make contact with your tree. You don’t have to do this practice at night, but the darkness does help you lean into your other senses. If you feel comfortable, you could close your eyes.

2. Lean back against the tree. Place a bare hand against the bark. Pressing your forehead — or even your face — gently against the tree can deepen the sense of contact (though passers-by may conclude you’re having a quiet existential episode).

3. Listen to the sound of the rain against the canopy. Notice how this natural, irregular ‘white noise’ softens your internal dialogue and settles your nervous system.

4. Breathe slowly. Inhale what the tree and the earth are offering. After rain, the air often carries geosmin, an earthy restorative scent produced by soil bacteria. Rub your hands gently against leaves or branches and notice their smell, their oils, their life.

5. If your eyes are open, look up and watch the dance of the leaves in the wind. Feel your brain shift into a relaxing, dreamy state of ‘soft fascination’.

6. Allow yourself to drift. You don’t need to do anything here. Simply let your attention rest, supported by bark, breath, sound and scent.

Why This Practice Works

• Enclosure and nervous system regulation. Environments that create a sense of shelter and refuge are associated with parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) nervous system activation. This aligns with Attention Restoration Theory, which suggests that ‘softly fascinating’ natural environments require less mental bandwidth and increase our sense of restoration.

• Tree contact and tactile grounding. Physical contact with natural surfaces can enhance interoceptive awareness and grounding, helping shift people out of threat-based states.

• Sound of rain and leaves. Natural soundscapes like wind in leaves or rainfall can reduce amygdala activation and support emotional regulation more effectively than artificial noise.

• Smell, geosmin, and volatile organic compounds. Soil inoculated with the geosmin‑producing bacterium Streptomyces rimosus increased serotonin, reduced inflammatory marker CRP, and increased alpha EEG activity during horticultural tasks, suggesting mood‑supporting and calming effects of soil VOCs, including geosmin.

• Low light and sensory shift. Reduced light conditions naturally down-regulate visual dominance and encourage multisensory awareness, which enhances stress reduction, wellbeing and calming effects compared to visual-only stimulus.

Upcoming Night Walks + Whatsapp Info Group

Good news!

After the success of our first two City Night Walks, I am planning to do them on a more-or-less fortnightly basis right through to summer (see The Optimist’s Calendar above).

They will remain free to access, but you can always make a contribution through Substack or Paypal if you so desire (see below).

If you would like to join our next London night walk, please reply to this email or join the Whatsapp info group by clicking here.

Night Walks London Whatsapp Info Group

As the evenings lengthen through Spring and into Summer, I will be adding a range of night walks, including longer sessions, new city parks, pre-dawn sitspots, and of course Night Shift Journey, where you can join me on a dusk-to-dawn therapeutic night walk through the New Forest.

Reply to this email to get on my informal early bird / night owl list for personalised notifications as these bigger, scarier events bud and blossom. 🦉

Thank You

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this newsletter possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

If you enjoyed this one, then go ahead and tell me. It’s the only way I’ll know. You can tap the heart button, write a comment, share the newsletter with friends, or simply reply to this email.

Share The David Charles Newsletter

If you’re not into the whole Substack subscription thing, then you can also make a one-off, choose-your-own-contribution via PayPal. That’d make my day.

Pay as you feel via PayPal

As always, thank you for your eyeballs and thanks for your support.

diwyc,
dc:

For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m an outdoor instructor, Expeditions Manager at British Exploring Society, and Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Guide (in training).

In 2026, every edition of this newsletter will give you another nature-based practice you can use right now to develop a deeper connection with yourself, with others, and with the world around you. 🌱

City Night Walking

A week ago today, a group of ten hardy souls braved the frozen air to join me on our first city night walk of the year, through one of London’s most beautiful and mysterious city parks: Crystal Palace Park.

We met at the Vicar’s Oak two hours after sunset and, after explaining why I believe nightime to be London’s most restorative time of day, we stepped into the park, crossing the threshold between straight lines and fractals, bright lights and shadows, cacophany and silence.

A night walk through a city park is proof that, even in the busiest metropolis, it is still possible — easy, even — to find moments of calm, quiet and stillness in nature, and to feel, by connecting with the more-than-human, those same properties of calm, quiet and stillness as they ease into our weary bones.

Last week, I took the night walkers on a whistle stop tour of some of my favourite nature connection and therapeutic practises. These practices included:

• Community of Oak

• The View From Above

• Tree Mentors

• Fractal Silhouettes

• Silent Night Walking

• The Great Cedar of Lebanon

There are many more that I can’t wait to share with future night walkers and, in 2026, this newsletter is going to reach out and offer you a new way into nature connection that you can use wherever you live, even if you live in a hectic urban environment — especially if you live in a hectic urban environment.

This is just the beginning.

If you would like to join our next London night walk, please reply to this email and I’ll put you on the list.

Today’s Practice: Growing Seasons

Today I’m going to walk you through a great practice to start your year. I call it Growing Seasons.

You don’t have to do this — or any of my practises — at night. But if you feel comfortable to do so, the night can gently encourage deep therapeutic benefits.

Reduced sensory input, lower light levels, and quieter soundscapes naturally calm the nervous system.

The wild and mysterious virtues of darkness are not just poetic: they are physiological. Stillness, silence, and low light invite the body into rest-and-repair mode.

But no pressure: it works great in daylight too.

Find A Tree

During this practice you will be working with a tree. If you live somewhere without any trees, then find another being of living vegetation.

In my more psychedelic or sentimental moments, I truly believe that we can learn from every living being that we come across and even, through stories and imagination, from those we never meet.

So, in talking of living beings, I am speaking in the broadest possible sense. I’ve been known to do this practice alongside the lichen on a rock.

(In fact, there’s another practice I’ll introduce soon that will hopefully widen your interpretation of ‘living being’, perhaps more broadly than you might imagine.)

But for now we will assume you’ve found a tree.

Unmistakeably Alive

Trees are, I think we can all agree, unmistakably alive.

They respire, communicate chemically, share resources through underground fungal networks, and respond to stress with remarkable sensitivity.

They are also recognisably individual: each tree shaped by wind, soil, light, pruning, disease, and time. Instinctively reading meaning into form, it’s quite natural for us to project character, even a personality, onto our favourite trees.

Perhaps there’s a grandfatherly oak at the end of your street, storing centuries of carbon and memory. Perhaps your local churchyard is guarded by dark yew trees: ancient, toxic and ominously evergreen. Or perhaps an optimistic town planner once planted flamboyant palm trees in a vain attempt to add the flair of exoticism to a multi-storey carpark.

For this exercise, though, I want you to find a tree that to you looks utterly dead.

London Plane: Dormancy Is A Choice

Writing as I am from London, I’m currently standing beneath a London Plane, the iconic species of this city.

The London Plane is a resilient hybrid species, popularly planted in cities since the mid-seventeenth century, one of our most efficient urban airconditioning trees.

Its bark peels away in patches like military camouflage, shedding pollutants with its old layers. Its enormous maple-type leaves are the city’s lungs in summer. Its seed balls hang like baudy baubles in autumn.

But now, in winter, it looks dead in the ground.

There are no leaves in its branches, no balls on their stalks, and even the bark looks necrotic, sodden from the rain. There are no buds, no young shoots. This particular specimen doesn’t wear any green coat of moss nor any puckerish sprout of intrepid fungi.

So come and settle down with me next to your chosen dead tree.

I’d encourage you to lean up against the bark, maybe make contact with the palm of your hand.

If it feels safe, close your eyes for a moment — not to imagine life in this tree, but to recognise it.

Because you already know: this tree is not dead. It is dormant.

Its bare branches are a choice.

Our Strategic Retreat

Deciduous trees like the London Plane don’t lose their leaves because they are failing. They drop them because they are adapting.

Leaves are expensive. They lose water, are vulnerable to frost, and require energy to maintain. As daylight shortens and temperatures fall, trees withdraw nutrients from their leaves, seal them off at the stem, and let them fall.

This is not decay — it’s strategic retreat.

Photosynthesis has become inefficient. The sun no longer provides enough energy to justify growth. So the tree shifts its priorities: conserving carbohydrates in roots and trunk, slowing metabolism, protecting vital tissues, and waiting.

Winter is not a growing season for the London Plane. Winter is for stock-taking, budgeting and decisive adaptation. Gathering together, strategic retreat, to prepare for the growing season ahead.

And this is what I want you to sit with this week.

What Is Best Left Until Your Growing Season Returns?

Connect with the wisdom of the dormant tree and ask yourself:

• Where would I be wise to hibernate?

• Where in my life am I no longer receiving enough energy to justify growth?

• What is best left until the growing season returns?

Sometimes projects and relationships end. But sometimes they behave more like the London Plane, the oak, the ash, apple, or hornbeam. They don’t die — they pause. They maintain themselves at a sustainable level, waiting for better conditions.

And the leaf-dropping deciduous trees teach us that this isn’t failure. It’s intelligence.

If the turning of the year has raised questions about whether you should cut loose, quit, or walk away, I’d gently invite you to explore the idea of dormancy before destruction.

Perhaps something in your life needs to die back, to shed leaves, or even lose a branch or two for the health of the whole organism.

Perhaps it’s time to name, to others and to yourself, that you’re conserving energy. You’re not quitting, you’re resting. Growth will return when conditions support it.

And if you’re exhausted this winter because you’re trying to keep too many things in endless summer — you’ve got too many projects fruiting, too many relationships demanding full leaf — then listen to the deeper lesson the wintering trees offer us.

Endless growth is not nature’s default.

Conserve yourself. Even the mighty beech forest that frocks southern England from west to east relies on long seasons of rest.

Nature’s Twist

If this doesn’t quite resonate with you today, here’s the twist. Nature never solves a problem in only one way.

If you have an inkling that this winter actually is your season for growth — that there is quiet, fertile work to be done in the darkness while others rest — then you are right.

Perhaps the tree you connect with this season is the evergreen.

Conifers don’t abandon their needles; they armour them. On bright winter days, photosynthesis trickle-charges pine, spruce and fir even in sub-zero temperatures. Coniferous roots grow slowly, steadily, through winter’s cold soil, quietly at work while others choose hibernation.

There’s wisdom there too — everywhere you look.

If you would like to join our next London night walk, please reply to this email and I’ll put you on the list.

Thank You

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this story possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

If you enjoyed this one, then go ahead and tell me. It’s the only way I’ll know. You can tap the heart button, write a comment, share the newsletter with friends, or simply reply to this email.

Share The David Charles Newsletter

If you’re not into the whole Substack subscription thing, then you can also make a one-off, choose-your-own-contribution via PayPal. That’d make my day.

Pay as you feel via PayPal

As always, thank you for your eyeballs and thanks for your support.

diwyc,
dc:

And a warm welcome from The Ness, where the sea is loud and the beach is stony.

For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor, cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel, half of the team behind BBC Radio comedy Foiled, Expeditions Manager at British Exploring Society, and Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Guide (in training).

Yes, that is too many hats.

In this newsletter, I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.

In 2026, this newsletter will undergo a quiet metamorphosis: a butterfly that, each week or so, alights on a different leaf, inviting you into deeper connection with yourself, with others, and with the natural world around you.1

But, for now, we’re still here in good ol’ 2025.

It’s been a wonderful year in my life for new beginnings. But also a reminder that, sometimes, good things come to an end.

Goodbye Thighs

Some of you best know me as one of the minds and legs behind refugee solidarity and fundraising bike ride Thighs of Steel.

It is with mixed emotions — mainly relief at this point — that we announced the closure of Thighs of Steel. We haven’t ridden together since the stormy summer of 2023 and we won’t be doing another ride.

Thighs of Steel was the defining act of my professional career and is the platform for everything I do from here on out.

I first joined the ride on its third edition in 2018, riding from Ljubliana to Sofia with a raggle taggle collection of some of the best humans I’ve ever met — few of whom classed themselves as ‘proper cyclists’.

I had found my community.

£760,000 And Out

Thighs of Steel met adversity with action — far beyond the stories, songs and sweets we shared for the hills.

Together, we helped to bring thousands of people’s attention to the systematic abuses suffered by displaced people living on the violent borders of Europe.

With these people’s attention came their care. I’m still amazed that our little community raised over £760,000 for solidarity projects primarily run by refugees for refugees.

That is £760,000 transferred from some of the most privileged people in the world, those like us with homes and lives in peaceful European countries, to some of the most disenfranchised, fleeing the lives and homes they loved and cherished.

For five years, my participation with Thighs of Steel was something I was incredibly proud of.

Then, in 2023, it became way too fucking hard.

The Bear Hug of Success

In some ways, the ride was a victim of its own success.

Year after year since 2016, Thighs of Steel built a reputation for bringing together team after team of brilliant humans to do challenging bike adventures in a supportive environment that became almost cult-like.

If you were in, you were in. And, boy, did it feel good to be in.

But with the popular explosion in adventure cycling after the pandemic, and with our social media accounts pumped up by our ‘Refugees Welcome’ world record attempt in 2021, our reach extended far beyond our friends and their friends.

2022’s ride from Glasgow to Athens was a huge hit. Sunny weather followed us for two months, all the way from Kelvingrove Park to Mount Lycabettus.

Every week’s worth of cyclists brought a giddy wave of positive energy that catapulted us over every mountain range and into the generous arms of every host along the road.

Better yet: we raised more money than ever before for grassroots refugee projects in Greece and the UK.

Word got around.

In 2023, we sold out the ride in record time. Expectations were high.

In the cloudless summer of 2022, exceeding expectations was hard fought, but achievable.

In 2023, the weather — literally and metaphorically — turned on us.

Expectations, so jubilantly won, became a strangling bear hug, too much for our small community to hold in rolling thunder.

Flood, Sweat and Tears

The first rumblings of discontent came from the insurers.

A big claim the year before (not by us) had made the whole outdoor insurance industry jittery. I spent days on the phone trying to find someone to insure the ride — even looking into setting up our own security fund. No dice.

In the end, the insurers came through. I’m not sure they liked us, though.

They would’ve liked us even less if they truly understood what we were doing out there: novice cyclists, on unserviced bikes, on sometimes unpaved roads, on unresearched routes, through a dozen countries, wild camping, on two hours’ sleep, in forty degree heat, in ferocious storms.

We left Glasgow in the rain. It didn’t stop raining that summer. It didn’t stop.

By the time we reached Greece — forget the ride — a once-in-a-generation storm had swept away the lives and livelihoods of the people living on the fertile floodplains of Thessaly.

One of our cyclists was badly hurt on the first day, a bolt of unseen metal puncturing his calf.

A few weeks later, our planned route mistakenly led cyclists along what eventually petered out into a narrow goat track, up the cliff edges of an Italian Alp.

Later that same day, another cyclist’s brakes failed on the descent. She went over a cliff and was extremely fortunate that the impact that broke her collarbone didn’t break her neck.

There were multiple outbreaks of a stomach bug.

It was really hard. Hard for me, as the only company director on the ride, to bear the responsibility of everything that could go wrong on such a venture, not to mention the genuine responsibility for the things that had gone wrong.

But we made it. No one died. Most people had a good time. Together, our tireless community of cyclists raised over £100,000 for refugee solidarity projects.

Phew.

Then, the day after we arrived in Athens, exhausted and relieved to be going home, we got a call from our partner charity.

A cyclist, who two months before we had refused entry to the ride, was making a formal complaint of discrimination against us.

This person had themselves been a refugee: who were we — a bunch of middle class white folk — to exclude them from a ride supposedly organised in solidarity with refugees?

What Is This All About?

I won’t go into the details of the complaint. That’s not what today’s story is about.

(If you want to read the whole 3000+ word explanation about why Thighs is closing, you can do that here.)

Today’s story is about disagreement and learning to disagree well.

It’s about how you can learn from what we didn’t do.

It’s about what I will do next time.

I want to give you a framework that will prepare you to move forward when the inevitable happens and you disagree strongly with friends, family, colleagues, partners — disagreement that is simply irreconcilable, when your unstoppable force meets their immoveable object.

What We Did — or What We Didn’t Do

When we got back to the UK after the 2023 ride, Thighs of Steel entered into a facilitated resolution process with the cyclist concerned, which evolved into a drawn-out process of organisational soul-searching.

How, if at all, could Thighs of Steel move forward from here?

We spent over a year trying to find a solution and we failed. We failed because we fundamentally disagreed on what values should guide our solution.

Some of the team believed in an absolute restructuring of Thighs with anti-racism at our core, starting from our foundations and questioning our structures and processes to find where systemic injustices are being replicated within our organisation.

In practice, this approach would mean either replacing ourselves as organisers or closing the organisation.

Others — myself included — believed in a more incremental process of improving procedure and increasing inclusivity, building on how Thighs has operated in the past and integrating anti-racist principles as we went along.

In practice, as a small community with limited resources, this approach would mean compromising on inclusivity and risking only paying lip service to our anti-racist ideals.

Neither of these approaches is right or wrong, but with two opposing values on how to approach a solution, our conversations came to a standstill and, as so often happens with voluntary or part-time labours of love, bills needed paying and lives moved on.

In the absence of any forward resolution, our only fallback option was closure.

No right, no wrong, but, strange as it may sound, our irreconcilable differences were foreseeable and, indeed, inevitable.

If not this grievance, if not 2023, then something else, some other year.

Our differences were baked into how we set up the organisation. Or rather, in how we did not set up.

And this is where I can help you today.

Guided By Vibes Values

Thighs of Steel was always guided by vibes.

Our only published mission was to ‘ride really far for good reason’.

The ‘good reason’ was fundraising for a charity that distributed funds to grassroots refugee solidarity projects across Europe.

I think everyone involved would say that Thighs of Steel was so much more than either of these two public statements. But that’s all we had to fall back on, all that was ever set out on tablets of stone or pixels of internet.

We never codified our community values and never wrote up how we rode together. We never had any standard operating procedures or any of the other bits of paper that hold communities and companies together when the going gets tough.

We were friends, first and foremost, and we organised bike rides for our friends, first and foremost.

We certainly didn’t have a plan for what to do when we strongly disagreed with each other.

You don’t need to make that same mistake.

Here’s what you can do instead — here’s what I will do next time.

And, by the way, this isn’t just for organisations like Thighs of Steel. This works just as well for any relationship where you might have a strong disagreement at any point in your lives.

In other words: every worthwhile relationship.

How Do We Disagree?

Find a quiet moment with you and your colleagues, partners, family.

Ask yourselves these five questions:

1. What core values are non-negotiable for everyone?

Name them explicitly, in precise language that you all understand. You want something solid you can all hold onto in a crisis, not bubble bath.

Accept that deciding core values at the start of a venture will exclude some people from the beginning, but at least they can see where the lines are drawn.

Core values pass all three of the following tests — anything else is at most only a supporting value:

1. Identity: ‘If we lost this, we would no longer be us.’

2. Decision‑guiding: ‘We are willing to sacrifice time, money and/or status to uphold this.’

3. Existing practice: ‘This is central to how we already make sense of our actions.’

Aim for 3-5 core values. If you have more, can you cluster them together? If you have fewer, something is probably missing. Ask yourself or ask others: what makes this organisation or community truly special?

For each value, write a short definition, illustrated with 3–5 ‘this looks like / does not look like’ behaviours.

How this would’ve helped us at Thighs of Steel: Which do we value more highly: inclusion or action?

2. What is our shared vision? What is our ‘destination’?

This vision should be:

• Brief.

• Clear.

• Future‑oriented.

• Challenging.

• Stable over time.

• Inspiring.

• Image-rich.

How this would’ve helped us: Is our vision to have a ride that is genuinely open to all, or to maximise fundraising for other refugee-led solidarity projects?

3. What is our shared mission?

• Who do we serve? Who are our stakeholders, customers, communities?

• What are we creating together? What are our products and services, what needs are we addressing, what problems solving?

• How do we do what we do? What is our core approach, what are our distinctive capabilities? How do our values look like in action?

How this would’ve helped us: Are our primary stakeholders refugee cyclists or refugee-led solidarity projects? Are we solving the problem of funding for grassroots refugee solidarity projects, or are we addressing a need for cyclists to go on adventures that also do good? Is wild camping core to our approach, or not?

4. When our values collide — and they will — how do we decide what to do next?

• Consensus? And what happens when we can’t reach consensus?

• Majority? And what happens to the minority?

• Minority? For example a Senior Leadership Team or Trustees.

• Designated ‘boss’ decision-maker? And how do we sense-check tyrants?

• Or do we pause and seek external support? In which case: who?

How this would’ve helped us: When we got stuck, how do we make and enact a decision to move us forward? Forget what to decide — we didn’t even really know how.

5. If all else fails, how will we make sure we end well?

• How and when will we decide to end? Who has that authority? What if only one person thinks time’s up?

• How will we share the difficult emotions around disagreement and closure to ensure there is no lasting unresolved or ill feelings?

• Who takes on the administrative and practical tasks around closing? Who is legally responsible?

• What do we want our stakeholders and the outside world to understand about our ending? What should not be said publicly, out of care for those involved?

• Will we mark the ending? How?

How this would’ve helped us: A clear ending process would have helped us structure a difficult decision and distribute the responsiblity.

How These Questions Help You

Ultimately, all five of these questions are designed to give you and your co-conspirators a heap of tools to help you make decisions when things get hard.

They won’t make the hard decisions any less hard to take, but they will remove a lot of emotional labour and uncertainty out of the process of taking those decisions.

Hopefully these questions will keep you together, but if they don’t, at least you will know why and at what point to go your separate ways, without regret.

Ultimately, what I’ve learnt from the past two years is that vibes aren’t enough to keep a good thing going. We need the framework, provided by our answers to these five questions, to hold our hardest disagreements.

Thank You

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this story possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

If you enjoyed this one, then go ahead and tell me. It’s the only way I’ll know. You can tap the heart button, write a comment, share the newsletter with friends, or simply reply to this email.

Share The David Charles Newsletter

If you’re not into the whole Substack subscription thing, then you can also make a one-off, choose-your-own-contribution via PayPal. That’d make my day.

Pay as you feel via PayPal

As always, thank you for your eyeballs and thanks for your support.

diwyc,
dc:

And a warm welcome from the Palace, where we’ve discovered the secret of the perfect cheese toastie: not sliced, grated.

For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor, cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel, half of the team behind BBC Radio comedy Foiled, Expeditions Manager at British Exploring Society, and Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Guide (in training).

Yes, that is too many hats.

In this newsletter, I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.

Sometimes I walk alone in the dark, admiring silhouettes of bare winter trees.

What Excites You? What Frustrates You?

Sometimes I think we spend most of our lives either excited or frustrated, travelling between excited and frustrated moments, or talking secondhand about what excites or frustrates us.

The last four years of my professional life has been built on organising challenging adventures and expeditions that offer people plenty of both excitement and frustration, sometimes using the one to break through the other in a way that changes lives, like mine, forever.

Today I have two questions for you:

• What excites you about your opportunities to connect with the natural world? This could be anything, but I particularly want to hear about the small things that you could do most days, not the big things that you might only do once in a lifetime.

• What frustrates you about your opportunities to connect with the natural world? This could be absolutely anything. Little things, big things: I want to hear about whatever stands in your way — and even when you stand in your own way.

This game wouldn’t be any fun unless I shared my own two answers. So here we go:

One Thing That Excites Me…

Walking in nature at night, in total darkness or by the halflight of the moon.

One Thing That Frustrates Me…

The narrative of danger (not unjustified I hasten to add) around our outdoor spaces, especially our city parks.

Why Am I Asking?

One of my goals for 2026 is to start building my own nature connection and adventure business. The loose mission is fourfold:

1. Make memories.

2. Build communities.

3. Heal ourselves.

4. Find purpose.

Connecting with what excites me and frustrates me is a great way to generate ideas for guided walks and adventures. An even better way is to connect with what excites and frustrates you.

Your answers to those two questions will help me identify what people are looking for, and, more importantly, how I can help them.

Night Shift: City Park Edition

For starters, and inspired by my own answers, I’m offering a limited series of Night Shift group walks in Crystal Palace Park in January and February 2026.

The group element of these short early evening walks will not only begin to build community, but also allay fears about walking alone at night in the park. There is strength in numbers.

Only from a secure foundation will I be able to share what I find so precious and restorative about city parks at night, quiet havens from the hustle bustle of hard pavements and harsh streetlights.

Our bodies and brains are best restored by natural shapes, textures, and movement. The fractal patterns and gentle movements of trees or clouds, complex but predictable, are soft on our sensory systems.

The city is the opposite: straight lines, right angles, high contrast, uniform surfaces, repetitive lighting.

These artificial environments demand constant vigilence, where your brain is making endless micro-decisions about flashes of light, sudden movements and startling noises.

In nature, your nervous system can finally stand down — even, given the right support, in your local city park.

In the constant barrage of sound, light and movement, our natural spaces are vitally important in the city — and doubly so in winter, when darkness intensifies our danger signals, and the call of the indoors is irresistible.

So:

• What excites you about your opportunities to connect with the natural world?

• What frustrates you about your opportunities to connect with the natural world?

Reply by email or in the comments and we’ll pick up the conversation next time.

Thank you.

ps: If you’re interested in joining any of the Crystal Palace Park Night Shift walks, they will take place on weekday evenings after dark in January and February. Email me for more details. The group walks are fully insured and free to access, donations welcome.

Thank You

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this story possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

If you enjoyed this one, then go ahead and tell me. It’s the only way I’ll know. You can tap the heart button, write a comment, share the newsletter with friends, or simply reply to this email.

Share The David Charles Newsletter

If you’re not into the whole Substack subscription thing, then you can also make a one-off, choose-your-own-contribution via PayPal. That’d make my day.

Pay as you feel via PayPal

As always, thank you for your eyeballs and thanks for your support.

diwyc,
dc:

And a warm welcome from the Palace — it’s been a while.

For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor, cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel, half of the team behind BBC Radio comedy Foiled, Expeditions Manager at British Exploring Society, and Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Guide in training.

Yes, that is too many hats.

In this newsletter, I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.

Sometimes I stand in awe of the Northern Lights; sometimes I change nappies.

This is a Once-In-A-Lifetime Opportunity

No — I’m not selling timeshares in the moon. I am talking literally: this (and this) is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

(So is this.)

Since my New Forest Night Shift journey last summer, I have been drawn to aphorisms that don’t, at first, sound like they belong attached to the mundane majority of our lives.

Paradoxically, that’s exactly why they fit even our most banal moments perfectly.

The lesson I took home from the Forest — ‘I am unbelievably lucky and infinitely grateful’ — is irresistibly true in every moment, even our most prosaic, painful or pathetic.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl expresses the grown-up version of the same idea with far greater authority than me, finding meaning in suffering, even as he, his family, his people are subjected to systematic genocide.

We could have been anything. We could have been nothing. We are unbelievably lucky to be something.

Likewise: ‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’ — irresistibly true in every moment.

Do you see what I mean?

This is a moment.

This is another.

That one’s been and gone already. It’s not coming back. It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment.

Meanwhile, ‘opportunity’ is defined as ‘a possibility due to a favourable combination of circumstances’.

Yet, in popular parlance, we tend to set a snobbishly high bar for ‘favourable combination of circumstances’ and miss the fact that our very being here, now, conscious, on earth, is itself a fantastically favourable combination of circumstances.

From the unlikely physics of a Big Bang that generated more matter than antimatter, leaving behind just enough star dust for existence, all the way up to the equally unlikely meeting of your mum and dad, and the sperm that met the egg.

Lucky old you.

And yet, somehow, we act as if only a few rare moments in life — the sliding doors of a dream job offer, surprise invitation, or winning lottery ticket — are worthy of being called ‘opportunities’.

The rest we treat as filler, as if everyday existence weren’t itself the most extraordinary long shot in the cosmos.

Don’t wait for the stars to align — they already have.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Congratulations.

~

This little story was heavily inspired by my agrypnotic readings of Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals while sitting up in the early hours with my two week old son sleeping on my chest.

Specifically, this passage, where Burkeman quotes a nineteenth-century Japanese statesman on the profound topic of afternoon tea:

Great attention should be given to a tea gathering, which we can speak of as ‘one time, one meeting’ (ichi-go, ichi-e). Even though the host and guests may see each other often socially, one day’s gathering can never be repeated exactly. Viewed this way, the meeting is indeed a once-in-a-lifetime occasion.

If a cuppa with friends is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, then why not everything?

This story was ‘written’ by dictation into my phone while walking around the park with my son in a sling sleeping on my chest — our new morning ritual that gives C an hour of solitude in which to make a down payment on her spiralling sleep debt, and gives man and boy the opportunity to scuff through fallen leaves together.

The two months since I last wrote to you have, as I’m sure you can imagine, been full of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

I hope this story reminds you that it needn’t take the birth of a newborn baby to wake up to the realisation that every moment is an opportunity in itself and we are unbelievably lucky to be here at all.

Thank You

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this story possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

If you enjoyed this one, then go ahead and tell me. It’s the only way I’ll know. You can tap the heart button, write a comment, share the newsletter with friends, or simply reply to this email.

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As always, thank you for your eyeballs and thanks for your support.

diwyc,
dc:

And a warm welcome from the Ness.

For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor, cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel, half of the team behind BBC Radio comedy Foiled, Expeditions Manager at British Exploring Society, and Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Guide in training.

Yes, that is too many hats.

In this newsletter, I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.

Sometimes I eat the cheese with the chocolate.

Passable Jokes About Hair: Back Online!

The eagle eyes among you will have already noticed that I recently uploaded to Substack all four series of Foiled, a radio comedy series set in Bleach For The Stars, a celebrity hair salon and spa in Cardiff Tonypandy, Wales.

The series was written by Beth Granville and David Charles — that’s me — and produced by Rubber Chicken for BBC Sounds, from 2017 to 2021.

One of the annoying things about licensing is that the BBC only paid to broadcast each episode of Foiled twice, which meant that all sixteen shows disappeared from the internet after less than a January’s worth of days.

Despite this egregious penny-pinching — which arguably denied millions of people the opportunity to listen to some passable jokes about hairs — Foiled easily became Radio Wales’ most downloaded comedy show ever.

Unfamiliar mainstream success was impossible for Radio Wales commissioners to believe, preferring to accuse Beth of ordering extended family members to stay up all night punching the download button on the BBC Sounds app thousands and thousands of times than to admit audiences actually enjoyed Foiled and they should really give us a telly series.

Over four triumphant years, Foiled played host to a veritable cavalcade of star guests on the show — including at least three who have starred in major Hollywood films and one who had a bit part in Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey?!

A-listed stars included Felicity Montagu, Ralf Little, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Derek Jacobi, Vicky Vox and David Charles as Pets World Shop Announcer.

But the heart of the show was always the regular cast — Beth Granville, David Oakes and Stéphanie Siadatan, with scene-stealing appearances from Garnon Davies, Tom Price and Miles Jupp.

One of the peak experiences of my life was sitting opposite the actual Miles Jupp as he read the actual words that I’d written for the actual Miles Jupp. Goosebumps.

I don’t expect your arrector pili muscles to respond in exactly the same way as mine, but if you’re curious, you can hear Miles in Everything’s Puzzles, Everything’s Plants and Everything’s Crocs.

So finally, after an internet absence of five years, you can discover or rediscover the madcap celebrity-studded world of Sabrina Edwards, Senior Stylist and Manageress, for yourselves.

To get you started, here’s Everything’s Chairs — one of my all-time favourite episodes, starring Francois Pandolfo as the mysterious Emiliano and Garnon Davies as Tariq, Tonypandy’s very own baguettes supremo.

Happy birthday, Beth!

Thank You

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this story possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

If you enjoyed this one, then go ahead and tell me. It’s the only way I’ll know. You can tap the heart button, write a comment, share the newsletter with friends, or simply reply to this email.

Share The David Charles Newsletter

If you’re not into the whole Substack subscription thing, then you can also make a one-off, choose-your-own-contribution via PayPal. That’d make my day.

Pay as you feel via PayPal

As always, thank you for your eyeballs and thanks for your support.

diwyc,
dc:

Written by Beth Granville and David Charles. Produced by Rubber Chicken.

Starring:

• Beth Granville as Sabrina

• David Oakes as Richie

• Stéphanie Siadatan as Tanisha

• Garnon Davies as Tariq and Frankie

• Tom Price as Justin from The Godbarber

Guest starring:

• Kiell Smith-Bynoe as Mike

• Dan Williams as TV Runner

Written by Beth Granville and David Charles. Produced by Rubber Chicken.

Starring:

• Beth Granville as Sabrina

• David Oakes as Richie

• Stéphanie Siadatan as Tanisha

• Garnon Davies as Tariq and Frankie

• Tom Price as Justin from The Godbarber

Guest starring:

• Vicky Vox as Vicky Vox

• SWSNBN as Mal

Written by Beth Granville and David Charles. Produced by Rubber Chicken.

Starring:

• Beth Granville as Sabrina

• David Oakes as Richie

• Stéphanie Siadatan as Tanisha

• Garnon Davies as Tariq and Frankie

• Tom Price as Justin from The Godbarber

Guest starring:

• Miles Jupp as Roger

• Dan Williams as Auctioneer

Written by Beth Granville and David Charles. Produced by Rubber Chicken.

Starring:

• Beth Granville as Sabrina

• David Oakes as Richie

• Stéphanie Siadatan as Tanisha

• Garnon Davies as Tariq and Frankie

• Tom Price as Justin from The Godbarber

Guest starring:

• Dan Williams as Baguettes Customer

Written by Beth Granville and David Charles. Produced by Rubber Chicken.

Starring:

• Beth Granville as Sabrina

• David Oakes as Richie

• Stéphanie Siadatan as Tanisha

• Garnon Davies as Tariq and Frankie

• Tom Price as Justin from The Godbarber

Guest starring:

• Miles Jupp as Roger

• Ralf Little as Simon Verana

• Will Kirk as Marc the Estate Agent

Written by Beth Granville and David Charles. Produced by Rubber Chicken.

Starring:

• Beth Granville as Sabrina

• David Oakes as Richie

• Stéphanie Siadatan as Tanisha

• Garnon Davies as Tariq and Frankie

• Tom Price as Justin from The Godbarber

Guest starring:

• Derek Jacobi as God Uncle Derek

• Richard Clifford as Beverly

Written by Beth Granville and David Charles. Produced by Rubber Chicken.

Starring:

• Beth Granville as Sabrina

• David Oakes as Richie

• Stéphanie Siadatan as Tanisha

• Garnon Davies as Tariq and Frankie

• Tom Price as Justin from The Godbarber

Guest starring:

• Samuel Gosrani as Vince

• David Charles as Pets World Shop Announcer

Written by Beth Granville and David Charles. Produced by Rubber Chicken.

Starring:

• Beth Granville as Sabrina

• David Oakes as Richie

• Stéphanie Siadatan as Tanisha

• Garnon Davies as Tariq and Frankie

• Tom Price as Justin from The Godbarber

Guest starring:

• Alexandria Riley as Alex

• Alistair Green as Yorrick

And a warm welcome from the Loch.

For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor, cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel, Expeditions Manager at British Exploring Society, and Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Guide in training.

Yes, that is too many hats.

In this newsletter, I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.

Sometimes I run away to Scotland. Sometimes I make adventure closer to home.

Self-Care Not Working? Try Adventure

Two years ago today, I was cycling through Croatia with a gang of mates, on our way, for the second year in a row, from Glasgow to Athens.

Ludicrously, this was my actual job.

These days, I work a full-time desk job in London. Occasionally I get to drive a van up and down the M6, but the closest I come to adventure on the day-to-day is a lunchtime game of Mölkky.

I’m not complaining — there’s a lot to be said for a steady salary, a loving home life and a game that involves throwing sticks at other sticks — but I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been a bit of an adjustment.

Sometimes the combination of London + Screens + Commute + Responsibility leaves me feeling down, dull and drained, burnt out to a flicker. And it’s only Wednesday.

No big deal, I’m told: take a hot bath, take an iced tea, take a spa day, take a holiday.

When did you first hear the term ‘self-care’? Chances are it wasn’t in the 1820s. Or the 1920s. Chances are it was only in the last decade or two.

Self-care is ‘the process of establishing behaviours to ensure holistic well-being of oneself, to promote health, and actively manage illness when it occurs’.

Self-care today is hot baths, gong baths, forest bathing, meditation, mindfulness, scented candles, flower arranging, origami, yoga, chocolate ice cream, foot massages, napping, showering, shaving, manicuring, a new haircut, baking, painting, pottery classes, podcasts, essential oils, gratitude, affirmations, boundary-setting, communities, laughter yoga, ASMR, prayer beads, mandalas, macramé, adult colouring, art therapy and dream journals.

It’s all really great stuff — revolutionary, even, for people typically excluded from access to self-care under racist, sexist, capitalist political norms.

As ‘black lesbian feminist warrior mother’ Audre Lorde wrote in A Burst of Light:

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.

But self-care doesn’t fix everything. It doesn’t come close to curing my kind of runaday burnt out.

Mid-week at work I’m not burnt out like a engine that’s been revved too hard for too long; I’m a camp fire guttering on wet logs.

I don’t need recovery, I need fuel — I need adventure.

Wednesday, 5.30pm. I logged off, clocked off and took off, me and a couple of friends on bikes.

Our last adventure together was cycling hundreds of kilometers across Albania back in 2019. Now we all have grown-up jobs in London, my friends with three young kids between them, lucky to have partners happy to handle bedtime alone.

An adventure is still an adventure, an exception to the tyrannical rules of bedtime.

In this case: an evening ride to the edge of London. We didn’t even cross the M25. We still found what we needed.

We cycled until dark, picked up an oily tandoori to eat by headtorchlight, then pushed into the woods to camp out.

It was already late by the time we’d pitched our tents in the tended wilderness of a managed open access woodland, up the hill from an expensive commuter belt suburb.

Professional footballers live here, we’re told.

We’re middle aged now. We sat in a triangle on the woodland floor, switched off our headtorches and shared thoughts on parenthood, friendship and adventure. We drank herbal tea. I photographed a sleeping grasshopper.

Two of us have kids at home. A night away is the exception, the adventure — but it’s also for sleeping undisturbed through the night.

We curled up like the grasshopper, until the early dogwalkers woke us.

Thursday, 8am. We packed up, carried out, and caught the first train back to the city.

We’re now back at our desks, bleary eyed, but no more so than after any other late curry night with friends in town.

One night only. It was nothing. It was everything.

Self-care not working? Try adventure.

Side bar: An open question on wild camping in suburbia

Wild camping in southeast England isn’t uncomplicated. There are more than a few complications and it’s unhelpful to start with the most obvious: it’s illegal without the permission of the landowner.

I have wild camped in southeast England both with and without the landowner’s permission and it’s rarely the decisive factor in the choice of an appropriate campsite.

Most of the time it’s not possible to determine the landowner without a trip to the land registry — I’m not camping on garden lawns or even on farmland.

Wild camps tend to be on common land, pockets of land with open access to the public, or in woodlands managed by public bodies.

There aren’t many of these around London, but perhaps more than you think. A legally enshrined right of responsible access that respects privacy, crops and nature would help.

Putting ownership aside, my thinking is nowadays more guided by considerations for the permanent residents: trees, birds, mammals, insects.

London and southeast England is, by an order of magnitude, the most densely populated area of the UK.

You could take these illustrations as evidence that wild camping in the southeast is irresponsible: one final indignity imposed on the last refuges of a harried non-human population.

But, while our night in the suburb woodland felt adventurous — just the tonic for worn out screensouls, there was never any question that humans were still the dominant species there, closely followed by their pet dogs.

In the balance between the needs of humans and the needs of nature, what more damage would we inflict with a night in a beauty spot so obviously still a part of the urban landscape?

In contrast, it’s easy to believe that wild camping in wilder places is easier on the native non-humans because of our relative scarcity. But is that true?

Our suburban woodland has, at least, adapted to side-by-side human domination, in a way that the more remote quarters of our national parks have not.

Does that make suburbia the more appropriate destination for people looking for overnight restoration?

This is an open question. I don’t know. What might the nightjar say?

Thank You

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this story possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

If you enjoyed this one, then go ahead and tell me. It’s the only way I’ll know. You can tap the heart button, write a comment, share the newsletter with friends, or simply reply to this email.

Share The David Charles Newsletter

If you’re not into the whole Substack subscription thing, then you can also make a one-off, choose-your-own-contribution via PayPal. That’d make my day.

Pay as you feel via PayPal

As always, thank you for your eyeballs and thanks for your support.

diwyc,
dc:

Written by Beth Granville and David Charles. Produced by Rubber Chicken.

Starring:

• Beth Granville as Sabrina

• David Oakes as Richie

• Stéphanie Siadatan as Tanisha

• Garnon Davies as Tariq and Frankie

• Tom Price as Justin from The Godbarber

Guest starring:

• Ralf Little as Simon Verana