As one year ends another one starts. As always, we make or New Years’ resolutions, or as I like to call it our to do list for the first week of the new year, but it also the time went regardless of our age or physical wellness we look to future with the optimism as it is never too late to start something new.
Now as we sit at the kitchen table with a cup of your favorite blend of tea, coffee or a nice cuppa soup, it hard not to notice that there is a stretch in the evenings already. The scientists tell us that our daylight stretches by 2 minutes 8 seconds a day or over 15 minutes per week. As we have peered through that same window for the past 24 months now maybe the time to say “ It is time to get back out there”
We have by now got the jabs including our ‘Booster’ the big out doors are calling. As we have long spells of the good weather lets look to what we should consider doing. Walks in the open-air is great not just for our physical health but the boost to it can give to our mental wellness is so impossible to measure.
In Kilkenny we are blessed with the public places we have available to explore and I am sure trickier memories from years gone by. Our Castel Park is one of the most beautiful places not only in Ireland but Europe. The pathways are always clear and have what is required not just by me,but I am sure others of my age, seating. A nice walk at a suitable pace and then a little rest where we can view all the activities of ‘a day in the park’ where soon the native bird songs will fill the coming spring air as the hustle and bustle to make a nest to raise another brew of chicks.
On the Eastern side of the Town we have ‘The Fen’. This is the only ‘Fen’, or the ‘Bog’ as I called it in my early days as we played Tarzan of Jungle exploring the ‘Serengeti of Newpark’, in a European city. With its walk way right around The Fen we can hear, see the native animals as the make themselves ready for the year to come.
Now I have a personal bias not just to Newpark’s Fen but the most beautiful of woodlands just out the North of our city, Jenkinstown wood. This incredible Coilte park is just amazing. Maybe a group of our vaccinated peers can take the quick spin out the Castle Comer Rd, or as my Dad sometimes referred to is as ‘The back Road to Dublin’. Now when turning left of the ‘Back road to Dublin’ there is a small carpark where you can pull up, sit out on the wonderfully constructed benches from felled Trees and listen to the Dinan River as it cuts it way through, the woodlands.
On up the road and over the old bridge you will come to Jenkinstown Church. There you can take a long or short stroll trough the main woodlands of the park. Or, once again sit quietly to listen, watch nature in all its beauty,
So, let us plan a new adventure as we start into a new year. Get out and about. Be it a long stroll or a short one, or just sit on a park or woodland bench. Take in the beauty of nature. Particular after 24 months of solitude, isolation and the fear of Covid 19 during lockdown. Get out a take a few short steps and a few big deep breaths of clear fresh air because remember ‘It’s Never too late to start something New’
