20 in 2020

I saw an idea on Amanda's blog here earlier this year about doing 20 things in 2020, so decided to do a variation on this with a couple of different lists.

Though I read voraciously it's usually fiction and in the crime/thriller genre, I have huge reading piles and a lot of generally nature related non-fiction in these piles so i'm making the effort to read at least a couple of non-fiction books in between the fiction! In theory this should give me 20 (at least) books this year. So far it's working well -

1) Wham and Me by Andrew Ridgeley - ok so this is not nature related, it was a Christmas gift and one i'd been looking forward to reading, Wham were my favourite band as the 80's child that I was! I won't go on about it but if you're a fan it's a definitely a book you should read!

2) Effin Birds by Aaron Reynolds - this was also a gift from a lovely friend who had received it to review and knew how much I liked my birds. It's not a bird book in the usual sense in it being quite sweary and silly really, the illustrations are quite wonderful and fun but it's not a book for everyone!

3) The Stationary Ark by Gerald Durrell - I read every Durrell book I could get my hands on at the local library growing up  (more than once) and picked this one up in a charity shop last year. Once I started reading I realised I hadn't actually read this before. It's an interesting book with a lot of very forward thinking for the role of Zoos for a time when Zoos were not into conservation and most wouldn't even entertain the idea. Of course zoos are still controversial in some quarters but there is no doubt that Durrell was trying (and succeeding) in making things better.

4) The Wild Remedy by Emma Mitchell - I've followed this lady on twitter for quite a while after she popped up in my timeline with her lovely nature filled tweets. I bought the book when it came out last year and i'm so glad I did. It chronicles a year in her life and how nature helps with her depression. The writing is beautiful and a lot of it resonates with how I feel when just watching the garden birds or taking a walk and seeing the simple things like trees in bud, hidden flowers, first Swallows. It is a really wonderful book and one i'd 100% recommend.

I'll add to the list as the year goes on, (i'm half way through my fifth book right now) i'm not a book reviewer (I'm not good at writing and expressing with the right words) but hopefully you may feel like picking up at least one of the books from my list! Plus putting this out on my blog motivates me to keep up with getting through my very large to read pile! (I've got to admit though with everything going on at the moment i'm struggling to concentrate to read anything!)

I also decided to do another 20, this one 100% nature based - learn 20 new wild flowers, I used to be so good with wild flowers when I was younger but somehow seem to have forgotten the names of even the more common ones that pop up through the year. At the moment of course Snowdrops, Crocus and Daffodils have been dominating the landscape but I have also seen my first Marsh Marigold in the woods early March, i'm looking forward to refreshing my memory and relearning things I really shouldn't have forgotten!

So far though the only one i've come across that I struggled to name was the following -

1) Coltsfoot - this was by the sea in Scarborough, in full flower and plenty of it too











It's a start, we'll see how it goes over the coming months with my world restricted mostly to the garden and the small nearby park at the moment!