Day 34 - The Power Of A Smile - April 16

Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott and you join me walking the final half a mile back to the car after a day of following the Mary energy current and for those of you that have been following me you know that this is day 34 now and I've been following the Michael and Mary energy currents across England they start in England in Cornwall and they head all the way up to Norfolk and right at the moment I'm in a county called Buckinghamshire I've just walked through a community and then I'm on a footpath ahead of me is a willow tree I can see a stable with somebody with a grey horse giving that grey horse a bit of a groom I don't know if they're going to go riding or they've just been riding there's still quite a strong easterly wind here today but it's been a very varied day of walking I've been on footpaths and trails and through communities through churchyards it's been very very enjoyable actually quite different from some of the very huge long straight paths through fields that I've been used to over the past few days so I've really enjoyed the variety and I guess the thing for me today just excuse me as I go through this gate the thing for me today I was I've been sort of let me go just through it now the thing today I've been reflecting on is the kindness of strangers really and because I've been walking through communities or around communities much more than I have in the recent days I've bumped into people more and the first man I bumped into was on a track called the Ridgeway he was walking his beautiful black cocker spaniel we just stopped for a chat and he was telling me about the butterflies he'd been to look for butterflies further along the path but he and he was telling me about the butterflies he'd seen and the ones that maybe aren't out yet and we just had a lovely exchange and we went on our way I then followed the Mary line went through Aston Rowant and as I came out of the church I bumped into somebody with a dog we had a chat and she suggested a route that I might like to go along and the route was different than the one I had on my map and I'm always a little bit reluctant about following the route of locals because they sometimes don't give very good directions hello I'm just watching a horse here getting hosed down and cleaned and just pass the horse now yeah so they often don't give very good directions because they know the walk so well they don't really think about the landmarks for a stranger but she said I'd recommend you go that way so I thought okay I'm going to try and find it and then I bumped into some other dog walkers and I asked them the way and they sort of helped me a little bit further along the way until I found this route and it was such a great feeling to have taken a different route and to have found my way I've got another gate hang on this is what it's like on my walks it's gates styles checking directions there we go that's me through the gate and it really you know I love my own company and I have really enjoyed my own company as I've walked so far so many days so many weeks on my own but I also really realized the importance of connection with people I think that's what's really become clear with me today and one church I went to in a place called Chino again that was a church related to the Mary energy line there was a lady in the church who popped up and helped me out and got me some fresh water for my water bottle and showed me some things of interest in the church and was just really delightful and supportive and those little boosts people don't realize I think and maybe I don't realize either this is probably just a message for me you know I don't really realize how important it is to smile to be welcoming you just don't know who that person is in front of you what they're going through you know I'm just a walker but the sense of being welcomed in a place is really powerful actually it makes me feel as though I'm supported and I belong even though I'm just passing through so the message I'm taking from today is just be mindful of strangers smile connect share a few words it really really can do wonders