Emer McLysaght: The very mention of the ‘W’ word sends me into a mini-rage

Remember when all we had was walks? Those silly little Government-mandated 2km radius walks that were, I suppose, good for our physical and mental health and probably gave us something to think about, what with the joggers spitting in our faces and parents insisting on bringing their children out into the sunlight.

I think those walks might have ruined walking for me, forever. At one stage during the height of the pandemic, when I was dying my hair pink and buying Shakti mats online (mine has been in the hot press with the roller skates and crochet kit ever since), I considered getting my friend to tattoo #AFW for Another F**king Walk on my hand. (She had also been doing some intense lockdown internet shopping and had purchased and perfected a stick-and-poke tattoo kit.)

At least when the walks were a national communal pastime there was some kind of incentive to get out and do them, though. Now the very mention of the W word sends me into a mini-rage fuelled by obligation and personal responsibility. After two years of AFW isn’t it enough to just lie on the couch letting episodes of Yellowjackets wash over me while playing Wordle?

No, is the simple answer.

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The inconvenient truth is that with the stupid walks comes exposure to bloody nature. Inspiring, renewing, dependable, colourful, lickarsey nature. I know nature is good for me. I’ve sought it out so often in times of stress or distress. My regular pandemic constitutionals around the gardens of Imma in Kilmainham with my friend Esther were restorative, as we tracked the explosion of buds and flowers and chatted about which of our houseplants were currently dying. It feels difficult to get back to that place now that the walks are no longer a focal point of the day. But I really need to get back to nature.

Nature walks were the single most exciting events to ever happen in school, outshone only by the annual school tour

So I’m thinking of regressing and starting a nature table in my sittingroom. My primary school memories place the nature table on a pedestal so high that I don’t know how I vaulted my wilted snowdrops on to it at all. It was a centre point of the classroom, groaning at various times of the year with hips and haws, daffodils, pinecones, leaves, shells and St Brigid’s crosses.

Now, with Imbolc just behind us it feels like the perfect time to get a grown-up version of a spring nature table on the go. Emma Mitchell’s beautiful book The Wild Remedy – a sort of diary documenting which flora and fauna appear with each month and how healing nature can be – tells me that snowdrops will likely claim the first place on my “table” along with cherry plum blossoms, pussy willow and primrose. February also sees the first of the bees emerge and while I’ll resist being a terrorist of nature by trying to catch one, maybe I’ll attempt to paint one with the watercolours I enthusiastically purchased during the second lockdown.

I’ll have to have a keen eye and try to arm myself with some knowledge beyond how to tell a daffodil from a weed, and I’ll also have to resist bringing home anything I can fill my pockets with. A friend told me once about her first experience using a childminder when she put her daughter into childcare. The woman in question had one iron clad rule for when she and her five or six charges were out and about: no sticks or stones to be brought back into the house. My friend said she fully understood the foot being put down on this issue, having seen how much detritus her one solo child could gather during a walk in the park. Similarly, the nature table at school used to groan under the weight of all the beautiful leaves and shiny conkers every autumn.

I’ll have to be selective and varied when I’m out on my own nature walks. Nature walks, by the way, were the single most exciting events to ever happen in school, outshone only by the annual school tour and the accompanying bags full of shite to devour on the bus. I remember convincing an English teacher in sixth year to take a break from the monotony of Leaving Cert Shakespeare to go for a “nature walk”. Luckily, he was a smoker and delighted to indulge in an unsanctioned cig break.

My table will actually be a tray, I think. A woven wooden thing I got in Søstrene Grene with great plans to arrange my skincare on it like fancy women do on Instagram. At the moment it's home to a variety of correspondence about my Tesco Clubcard and car insurance as well as the extra bits for the new Hoover I got for Christmas. I will have to find a new home for the Hoover bits. A second tray, perhaps?

Anyway, I feel energised to get out and walk again now that I have such a wholesome purpose. If you see a headline declaring “Woman arrested after kidnapping Phoenix Park deer” you’ll know I’ve gone too far.