‘What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.’ So wrote poet William Henry Davies well over a century ago lamenting the rush and bustle that was life then and which, increasingly, has dominated our world and existence ever since – until March 2020, that is. For then, literally overnight, we were ‘locked down’ to varying degrees due to the vile Coronavirus. Granted life is slowly returning to something approaching normality but we have not reached it yet – if we ever do.

For sure, however, these past 15 months of restrictions have left so very many of us with time on our hands – probably more than we have ever known in our lives, no matter how long these have lasted. So what during these torrid, often alarming times have we been doing? Have we taken the poet’s advice and stood and stared? Statistics suggest that we most certainly have – but not quite in the way which he envisaged.

For his take on things, his ideas as to how we inhabitants of our magnificent islands should pause our hectic, involved, often stressful lives, were based on folk gazing about themselves at the beauties and, often, wonders of the natural world about them; to him people could find peace and fulfilment – certainly eschew stress – by absorbing the tranquillity and nobility of so much which surrounds us.

The problem is that whilst his insightful words have in a sense resonated with great numbers of the British citizenry, it has not quite been in the fashion and field he was advocating. Great numbers have indeed stared – but rarely in a standing position and even more infrequently in the open air taking in the visual delights of the world about us which can refresh body, mind and soul.

For statistics put out recently suggest that a wide swathe of the population of the United Kingdom – of all ages – have spent during the period of Covid-19, on average, over three and a half hours per day indoors gazing at the screens of computers, iPads and smartphones in an incessant pursuit of communication and contact with others via Zoom, WhatsApp, social media, text or plain old-fashioned email. Some of this ‘screen-time’ probably makes sense, especially the ordering of vital supplies from supermarkets and the like; so much of it, however, to this cynical, moaning, dinosaur-like and assuredly anti-social old toad, seems pointless – even gratuitous.

William Davies was advocating, for we inhabitants of this stressful and problem laden world, the relief of many of our tensions and worries by communing ‘in person’ (not virtually) with nature. I accept that if one dwells in a conurbation such relief is not easy to find, although most cities throughout our ‘sceptred isles’ are reasonably well blessed with parks and open spaces. In contrast, living here as we do in the very rural, scenic South West peninsula, the opportunities to be in the fresh air and to soak up the natural beauty and serenity about us, even during the ‘once a day’ outdoor exercise regimen at the height of the depressing lockdown, have been on hand – and are to be coveted.

Ann and I have spent countless hours in our garden during the past 15 months. Generally it has been most relaxing, even comforting, as we have charted the changing seasons surrounded by an abundance of colourful flowers and shrubs thanks to Ann’s horticultural skills and diligence; also we have had sight of – and heard the chorus (not just at dawn) of a multitude of birds of widely varying species. We have viewed squirrels practising their stunning acrobatics in the trees and on the telephone wires and even seen a hedgehog – an all too rare sight in these times.

Granted not all folk are as fortunate as us; many do not possess an outdoor space to call their own. Yet that granite, tor strewn plateau, Dartmoor, is close at hand for so many. There, to use the descriptive gem of William Wordsworth, one can ‘wander lonely as a cloud’. Also, here in the South West as the country tapers to a point at Land’s End nobody is located very far from the coast. At any time surely it is possible to gain inner peace, plus a feeling of well-being, standing on a cliff watching on a sunny day the sparkling seas running onto beaches or in stormy weather tempestuous waves thundering onto implacable rocks.

Still, each to his or her own, as goes the saying. As to myself, being basically of an idle disposition, I will continue to stand and stare – sit, to be more accurate – something I had perfected long before Covid-19 came along.