Debbie Adams / “The Spot”

How difficult can it be to find a place to spend the day doing not very much?? More difficult than I’d imagined; nothing seemed to feel right. To be fair, two of the spots I voted off were not suitable due to bad smell and too many midges. I didn’t want to hold my nose for 10 hours or sit with the midge head cover on all day; neither of which are conducive to deep contemplation or, indeed, just hanging out in nature.

Eventually settled on a spot and settled into the day. OK, bring on the revelations… anytime now…I’m waiting…I don’t have all day you know (well, actually, I do, but that’s not the point)… When the solo day was being described we were warned that many of us might have a quite mundane day. I think if I try to describe the detail of my day here it will sound pretty mundane. I’ve been quite amazed at how much I enjoyed all of nature’s creatures. I knew I’d like watching the birds on the water but had no idea I’d enjoy watching spiders building a web. I was even careful that I didn’t step on them when I jumped around to keep warm. When do spiders eat their prey? A few webs had trapped some unsuspecting insects but the spiders weren’t trying to scoff them down. Do they need to be fully dead before spiders will eat them?

I did spend a bit of time thinking ‘what’s the point in all of this’ but I think that was defeating the purpose. I’m hoping the debrief tomorrow helps to make some sense of it all. Maybe the others will help me to ‘get it’ Once I gave into the day itself I enjoyed the natural habitat. I even gave drawing and writing a poem a go. I also thought about things that matter to me in both work and personal life.

What did I learn at the end of the day:

• I can while away a day in the natural environment
• I don’t need to have my brain functioning at 100 mph all of the time
• I need to remind myself this programme is a process and have faith in it at this stage (although I think we need a bit more of an understanding about how all of this fits into a broader framework).
• I have artistic inclination (as opposed to ability)
• I’m reminded that we are lucky to live in such a beautiful country