46 BBC Wildlife May 2020

Coming

up

for air

Chris: Paul Carter; wood anemones: Arndt Sven-Erik/Arterra Picture Library/Alamy

For those of us

drowning in news of

COVID19 and social

distancing, taking time

to focus on the beauty

ofnaturecanprovide

welcomerelief.

S

ome days I get up and by the

time I’m brushing my teeth,

it’s already clear to me that

today is not the day. It’s one

of those days, one which will

struggle to get going, limp

miserably through its 24 hours

and probably be forgotten by the end of the

month. You see, I don’t feel happy.

To be clear, I’m not depressed either but

I’m definitely not in the mood to rival Sid

and Nancy’s (my black miniature poodles)

insatiable desire to rush out and go wild.

I open the door and they explode into the

garden. I trudge back to the bathroom to

shave and notice that I’m not smiling back

through my moustache of foam.

Maybe I had a nightmare I’ve already

lost to the dawn. Maybe I slept even more

poorly than normal. Maybe I just ‘got out

the wrong side of the bed’. More empirically,

I suspect that my brain chemistry is awry,

some cocktail of hormones or molecules is

missing from my limbic system. Whatever

• the result is notably disappointing because

By Chris Packham