Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott.
Once again I'm down by the River Ex.
Once again I'm having a stroll.
You might hear cyclists and runners go by.
It's a work day today so this is more likely to be busy than usual days.
And I've just come over the River Ex.
There's a footbridge over the River Ex and as I came over the Ex I could see a heron on the water.
There's a seagull that seems to be wanting to dive bomb this heron that's standing on a rock in the water and I can't quite work out why.
Maybe the seagull has got a nest nearby.
There's a swan just in front of me here but it's a grey swan so this must be a young cygnet I think just learning the ropes of wafting around looking beautiful.
And as I came over the bridge I saw the bins had been disrupted by the seagulls.
What happens is the seagulls often go into the bins and they pull out all the rubbish looking for little bits and pieces of food and it can look very chaotic around the bins in the morning.
And the cleaner is there.
He was patiently picking up bits of rubbish and packaging and fast food containers putting them into a bag to clear up the area.
And actually his role has prompted a thought today which has been spinning in my head about something I wanted to share and it's about cleaning.
I know it sounds a bit strange but bear with me.
Cleaning is something that I've recently really done a lot of.
For my family,
For my mum,
I do a lot of cleaning and I've helped other family members as well with a bit of cleaning.
And surprisingly I found it incredibly satisfying.
Incredibly satisfying to see something that needs attention and to address it but also it's an expression of love.
That's what cleaning is.
It's an expression of love.
And so as well as feeling quite satisfied to see something go from dirty or muddled to clean and tidy,
I also know that this is a way that I can practically express my love.
And when I saw a friend recently,
She's going through quite a lot,
And she made a comment that with all the stuff that she's trying to support with her to do with her family and supporting,
There's a lot going on for her.
There's a lot going on for her.
And when I saw her the other day,
One of the comments that she made was that she felt really deflated when the family had just teased her about her job as being just,
She's just a cleaner,
Like demeaned it,
In a teasing way.
But as she said,
There wasn't any kindness behind it.
I felt like I was kind of having the finger pointed at me,
Like it was really a dig at my self-esteem.
And that comment that she said really landed for me because it made me realize that really cleaning or cleaners are people that aren't really given much attention.
They are the people that make the difference but are unseen.
I mean,
If you go into a school,
The children leave the school and then the cleaners come in,
And the children come back in the school and the teachers come back in the school and the school is clean.
It's like this magical thing that happens,
But nobody really realizes how or when it happens or why it happens.
It's just the way it's meant to be.
It's the starting point,
But there's somebody that brings you to the starting point.
And then I extended it a little bit more because I was thinking there are people who are cleaners who aren't just physically cleaning kitchens and toilets and houses and offices.
There are people that are cleaners in our society.
When I worked in the community,
There were dozens and dozens of people who saw a need,
Saw something needed attention,
Rolled up their sleeves and did something about it.
They created a group,
They started a coffee morning,
They reached out to people,
They visited people.
These are the cleaners in our communities.
They're unseen.
We don't really know what our community would be like without them because we just assume and take for granted the work that they do.
So I'm just making a shout out for the art of cleaning today.
It takes many different guises and I am just going to ask the question,
Are you a cleaner?
In either the literal or metaphorical sense,
Are you a cleaner in the world?
When you pass on by,
Do you make things better?
That's the question to ponder today.
