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There was an article in the Guardian earlier this week about BlueHealth, a programme researching the health and wellbeing benefits of blue space across 18 countries. They are finding that proximity to water is associated with many positive measures of mental wellbeing. The coast seems to be especially effective, with the suggestion that the ebb and flow of the tides can help alleviate negative rumination - the lead scientist says “What we find is that spending time on the beach, there’s a transition towards thinking outwards towards the environment, thinking about those patterns – putting your life in perspective, if you like.” Last weekend, I was on route 7 at Doonfoot shore doing a recce for a bird ID course we are running there, encouraging people to do the RSPB Birdwatch survey on the National Cycle Network. The clouds were gathering but it was a needed outing, and the list of birds started to rack up - the 'knowns' and, with the help of a guidebook, the 'never-knowns' and 'forgottens'. Mute swan, mallard, stonechat, redwing, teal, rock pipit, turnstone, twite. Most captivating, however, was the solid group of 70+ redshanks that moved in unison between riverbank and shoreline each time a boisterous cocker spaniel scattered them. Hunkered down, they were a knot of brown fluff, but in flight their red legs stood right out in an otherwise panicky blur of feathers and wings. There was no space for overthinking new year's resolutions, or life's forward creep - the Christmas cobwebs were blown out and replaced with sea air, names, light, observations, delight and questions. There doesn't seem to be a collective noun for redshanks, but I'm naming them 'a health'.

1/1/20 We had a family new year's dip at St Bees in rough seas, very exhilarating. John Muir would have loved the full immersion experience.

1/1/20. #2minutebeachclean. It's quick, it's good exercise reaching, running and bending, it's fun, it's social, it can be done anywhere and it's good for the planet. What's not to love about the 2 minute beach clean. Try it! https://beachclean.net/

So my sons and I collected discarded soft drink bottles (37) from the roadside around where we live. We used them at our local church and they became amazing Christmas decorations which sparkled by day and shimmered by night. Now Christmas is over, they are all safely sorted for recycling. It is a sad reality that litter we drop around the countryside enters our watercourses polluting our sea by wind and rain either directly through streams and rivers or via our drains. I created a proportional word cloud of the soft drinks we collected, the bigger the word, the more we found. I have decided to do my own version of a dry January and boycott all bottled and canned soft drinks, I will use my refill and help the planet. I hope others join me.

Walking along the strand line at Allonby I collected 70 plastic bottle tops and 62 cotton wool bud sticks (see photo), unfortunately we didn't walk far. It's motivation for me to arrange another Marine Conservation Society beach survey and beach clean. With data from these surveys MCS have campaigned to get cotton wool buds plastic free and for soft drinks deposit return schemes, which Scotland propose to launch next year. Interesting to find 2 Smarties plastic lids, Nestle removed production of these in 2005 so my orange Smarties lids is 15+ years and the blue one having Rowntrees imprinted on the reverse is 32+ years as Nestle bought them over in 1988. It shows the longevity of plastic as they still look perfect! 27 Jan 2020 update, I found another smarties lid at St Bees, this could become addictive, now I have a d, h and k.