Have you ever hugged a tree? I have

Wednesday, 22nd April 2020

I wrote a blog recently called ‘A walk on the wild side of Cleethorpes Town’ and what we saw during our daily exercise following the government guidelines during the pandemic.

This weekend, our walk took us down avenues with trees bursting with spring blossom. You can tell that the blossom is reaching its peak, as the wind releases it from the trees and the beautiful colours of the petals in pink and white blow around us.

We headed down to the Boating Lake, and as we promised we would, went to feed the teams of ducks and gaggles of geese on the lake. They were so pleased to see us ??

We gently approached them, at first, keeping our distance just to let them know we were here to feed them and not to scare them. They soon became friendly and started to follow us as we walked away with the duck and goose mix onto the next section.

We continued along the lakeside, keeping our social distance and moving aside so other walkers could pass us - these really are uncertain times, aren't they? I bent down along the edge of the water as the ducks came to see me. Placing the duck food on the edge of the path, they came to help themselves and soon there was an influx of hungry ducks and geese happily tucking in.

As we walked up along to top of the pathway, I noticed in the rough woodland area the drake and the hen relaxing in the dappled spring sunshine. They allowed us to get so close to them to feed and we managed to get a great photo of them.

Whilst in the rough woodland, one of my work colleagues challenged me to find a tree and give it a hug. Apparently, tree-hugging can help you feel calm – so I accepted the challenge. It did.

On our final part of the walk, we cut along the side of the Golf Course. There was no one around, we had this beautiful area all to ourselves and sun was shining although the wind a little cooler as of late, but still nice to get out in the fresh air.