"The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus" by Michael McCarthy, Jeremy Mynott and Peter Marren

I recently finished reading "The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus" by Michael McCarthy, Jeremy Mynott and Peter Marren.

Spring 2020 will live long in the memory for the best and the worst of times.

We experienced many days of beautiful warm and sunny weather (possibly the loveliest spring in living memory) juxtaposed with the rapidly evolving human tragedy and calamity that was, and still is, the Covid-19 pandemic.

What a huge conjunction of mixed emotions!

How should we have dealt with that?

 

Was it OK to experience and enjoy the wonders of the natural world when thousands of people were dying and when our NHS heroes were sweating for long hours in their PPE to try and keep as many of our fellow citizens alive?

 

The Covid-19 pandemic hit us when the Northern Hemisphere was entering springtime. It is not difficult to imagine how illness and bereavement and the challenges and stress of lockdown would have been greatly intensified if the first wave had emerged and progressed in the dark, cold and wet days of November and December rather than during springtime, the season of re-birth, re-emergence and hope (unfortunately, it appears that the second wave is occurring exactly during those later months).

 

The authors of "The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus" are 3 naturalists: Michael McCarthy, Jeremy Mynott and Peter Marren. Their book primarily comprises their personal diaries of their encounters with nature and wildlife in their local areas during the springtime period of the Covid-19 pandemic and their personal response to it.

 

The diaries cover the period from 21st March 2020, 2 days before the national lockdown was implemented, to 31st May 2020, when the first measures to lift the lockdown restrictions were being confirmed.

The book begins with a short description and a sketch map of each of the local patch sites visited by the authors.

 

Michael McCarthy: Richmond Park and the River Thames towpath between Richmond Bridge and Kew Bridge in Greater London

 

Jeremy Mynott: the area around the villages of Little Thurlow and Great Thurlow in rural west Suffolk

 

Peter Marren: the area around the village of Ramsbury in the valley of the River Kennet in the North Wessex Downs AONB in Wiltshire

 

Before a short contextual chapter from Michael McCarthy, “Spring in the time of Coronavirus” and the diaries themselves, the following quote appears ….

 

“There is something to be wondered at in all of nature” – Aristotle 

 

In the diaries, all 3 authors observe and describe their local areas and the nature and wildlife that they encountered. It does seem like that their senses and their appreciation of their local areas were enhanced by the rapidly worsening Covid-19 pandemic and the response to it and there are occasional references to the external events going on at the same time.

 

My first blog post was published on 17th March 2020, just a few days before the diaries in the book commence. Therefore, I have been on a similar journey in observing and describing nature and wildlife at my 2 local patch sites at a time of the developing Covid-19 pandemic.

 

However, for anyone not writing a personal blog or keeping a personal diary, "The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus" provides a vicarious diary which may serve to jog some memories.

My blog post on 18th April 2020 refers to the importance of keeping a diary.

"The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus" is a remarkable and highly recommended book. I read it alongside revisiting some of my own blog posts and it was a bit of a jolt to return to the intensity (good and bad) of that period. Many of the authors’ experiences matched my own.

There are a few passages towards the end of the book which were particularly meaningful for me.

Jeremy Mynott: “Much has changed since we began this project but the sense I recorded at the outset (21^st March) of oscillating between two parallel worlds has persisted, indeed intensified. One of unrelieved horror, the other offering some hope and consolation. The restrictions rightly placed on us in the national crisis have created their own matching compensations. I’ve gladly embraced the discipline of travelling only as far as I can walk and found great freedom in exploring just one familiar area. At least, I thought it was familiar until I really looked. Our patron saint Gilbert White again: ‘Men that only undertake one district are much more likely to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be acquainted with’.”

Jeremy Mynott: “We can be forgiven for feeling confused and disorientated by the extreme contrasts in this extraordinary spring: between the record-breaking sunny weather and the looming climate crisis; between our innocent and inspiring experiences of nature and the tragedies in human lives wrought by the pandemic; between the many individual acts of solidarity and kindness and the cynical calculations of political discourse. We seemed to have learned so much and so little.”

Michael McCarthy quoting the Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: “I think we’ve got this extraordinary moment in time. The so-called green recovery – there is an enormous opportunity to do that, around the world, and I hope it happens. But it requires leadership! It requires far-sighted, excellent leadership and I don’t know whether we are going to get that or not. I just hope that all this has given humanity a little dose of humility. I think as a species we believe we are masters of everything, that everything can be controlled and shaped to our will – and broadly speaking that’s true. But every now and then, whether it’s an Icelandic volcano going off, or an earthquake, or now this pandemic, we are reminded that there are forces out there that we can’t control, at least not in the intermediate term, and our ability to control them has very profound consequences on our lives.”

💚🦆 🦉🦋🐝🦊🦡🌼 🌳💚
Stay safe, stay well, stay strong, stay connected with nature