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  Have We Forgotten How to Enjoy Nature? When Did the Outdoors Become Something We Only Look at Through a Screen? A few days ago, I wrote about alternatives to sitting indoors playing computer games. The point was not that games are inherently bad. They can be creative, challenging, social and enjoyable. Some games involve extraordinary artistry, sophisticated problem-solving and imaginative worlds. The problem begins when the digital world becomes more interesting to us than the real one. We can explore vast forests in a computer game while barely noticing the trees at the end of our own road. We can photograph imaginary wildlife, construct virtual gardens and watch computer-generated storms while remaining indoors on a beautiful afternoon. Modern technology gives us access to an almost unlimited supply of entertainment. Yet it may also be weakening our ability to appreciate things that do not flash, beep, reward us with points or change every few seconds. Have we forgotten how to...

  Half of England Is Officially in Drought: What Happens If the Dry Weather Continues? England is often imagined as a wet country: green fields, overflowing rivers, grey skies and rain arriving just in time to spoil a summer barbecue. Yet half of England is now officially in drought. On 29 July 2026, the Environment Agency declared seven areas to be in drought: East Anglia; Hertfordshire and the whole of London; the Thames Valley; Hampshire and the Isle of Wight; Devon and Cornwall; the West Midlands; Wessex, covering Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire. The Environment Agency has described this as a flash drought —a drought that develops unusually quickly because very low rainfall is combined with exceptionally high temperatures. Rivers are running low, some crops are being harvested early, wildfire risk is increasing and millions of people are already subject to restrictions on water use. This is not simply a story about hosepipe bans or brown lawns. If the dry ...

  Why We Should Spend More Time Looking Up The world above us is changing every minute Most of us spend a surprising amount of time looking down. We look down at phones, keyboards, shopping lists, pavements, dashboards and the collection of small tasks competing for our attention. Even when we go outside, we may walk with our heads lowered, thinking about where we are going rather than noticing what is around us. Yet directly above us is an enormous, constantly changing world. Clouds build and dissolve. Birds circle on rising air. Aircraft draw temporary lines across the sky. Trees move in the wind. Stars appear that have travelled unimaginable distances to reach our eyes. The angle of the sunlight changes with the seasons, sometimes so gradually that we barely notice it happening. Looking up costs nothing. It requires no specialist equipment, membership or subscription. It can be done from a garden, a balcony, a park, a riverbank, a school playground or simply while walking to the...

  Twenty Outdoor Activities That Cost Almost Nothing The Best Entertainment System May Already Be Outside Your Door In my previous article about alternatives to sitting indoors playing computer games, I argued that the best graphics card ever made is still the human eye. That was not an attack on gaming. Computer games can be creative, social, challenging and entertaining. They can develop problem-solving skills, introduce young people to programming and even inspire an interest in history, engineering or science. The problem begins when gaming becomes the automatic answer to every empty hour. It is easy to assume that outdoor activities require expensive bicycles, specialist cameras, boats, climbing equipment or costly memberships. Some certainly can become expensive once enthusiasm takes hold, but the starting point is often remarkably cheap. A phone already owned, an old notebook, a pencil, a drink bottle, suitable clothing and a willingness to look more carefully may be a...