A vital lesson

  By Paul Barclay, Cumbernauld Living Landscape Health and Wellbeing Project Officer This week is Green Health Week and people all over the UK are taking the opportunity to highlight just how vital spending time in nature is to everyone’s health and wellbeing. The last few years have really emphasised this. For many of us, stuck at home, that daily

A New Beginning

Sadly I have come to the end of my time as a Creating Natural Connections Trainee with Cumbernauld Living Landscape, so I wanted to take some time to reflect on my past few months helping to protect and enhance Cumbernauld’s many green spaces! Months ago I came to the project desperate to expand my knowledge and to develop more skills

A week in the life of a new trainee

  My name is Alex, and I’m one of two new Creating Natural Connections Trainees who started recently with Cumbernauld Living Landscape. My first week as a trainee has been an exciting chance to get to know the team and join in with some of the brilliant projects happening across Cumbernauld. My first task of the week was to join

Healthy body, healthy mind – healthy planet

Healthy body, healthy mind is a phrase most of us recognise, but perhaps it is time to add a new clause to that old mantra. It’s now recognised that for a healthy life one of the most important factors is a healthy planet. Research shows that being amongst vibrant, biodiverse, natural spaces is vital for healthy people and communities. At

The sounds of the wild seasons

If wild geese provide the soundtrack to winter walks, the warblers to the spring, and the screaming swifts are our summer music, then it is the incessant piping of young buzzards that sometimes fill these not-quite-summer, not-quite autumn days. In truth the adult buzzards have been calling to one another most of the year – only falling silent in the

Natural healing

    This week is Mental Health Awareness Week. Unfortunately there is still real stigma, fear, and even shame surrounding mental health issues. There shouldn’t be. The past year has shown us that illness can strike anyone, anywhere – but it also showed the strength that lies within us to endure even in the darkest of times. One of the

Magic in the air

20 March was the date of the Spring Equinox, when night and day are perfectly balanced with 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness. For many of our ancestors this was a special time. The cycle of the sun was vital to them and they watched the skies closely, monitoring for signs of change. In many Celtic cultures

Frosts, fires and foxes – what a way to start a new job!

by Katie Brown, Cumbernauld Natural Connections Trainee For those of you who don’t yet know me, hello, I’m Katie and I’m the new Creating Natural Connections trainee at Cumbernauld Living Landscape. I have lived in Cumbernauld my entire life and in this new role I hope to inspire my local community and learn something new every day. I’m only one

Autumn Wellbeing

  An autumn walk can be a fantastic way to shake off the worries and pressures of daily life. The vibrant colours of the leaves are nature’s gift to us all as they turn and fall in drifts. The trails of reds, browns and yellows marking autumn’s progress always brings out my inner child, I can never resist that secret