I GREW up in a terraced house in Liverpool. We didn’t have a car, and spent a week every summer in Llandudno on the North Wales coast, with a day to Southport thrown in for good measure.
On my daily walk to school or the local shops, there would not be much to look at, nature-wise. Plenty of privet hedges, the odd stunted tree and the occasional pigeon were about as exciting as it got.
If you were lucky you would spot a couple of cats to stroke.
Thirty years later, I daily thank the fate that brought me to live in an area brimming with natural beauty and wildlife aplenty.

Even from my bedroom window I can see miles of fields, full of crops and grass, dozens of trees, flowering hedges and an ever-changing expanse of sky.
The farm on the horizon is home to several cows, some horses and, in winter, fifty or so sheep.
Geese, ducks and herons regularly fly overhead – on a still night you can hear their wings flapping in unison – while in the fields hares crouch low to avoid a creeping fox.
Pheasants sometimes scuttle across the open fields, their feathers shining like a rainbow, while on a summer’s day you can see dozens of swallows swooping for their dinner.
On the odd occasion, if you’re lucky, you may see a short-eared owl hunting at dusk, or an outing of bats crunching on night-time moths.
And all that’s just out of the bedroom window.
On my walk to the station I am treated to several more horses, a small lake with geese, coots and moorhens, and plenty of well-kept gardens which, at this time of year at least, are full of colour.
Even the garden birds are more interesting. The only pigeons we see are of the wood variety, while the list of birds I’ve seen in the area reads like a twitcher’s notebook.
OK, it’s not exactly the Canadian Rockies or the Serengeti Plain, but it’s beautiful nonetheless, and my life is enriched by it.
Certainly your surroundings have an effect on your outlook. It’s also true, I think, that if you’re brought up in an area of natural beauty you tend to take it for granted.
I remember once taking a train on a scenic route in the Scottish Highlands. It was rush-hour, and the train was crowded with commuters.
Suddenly we came across one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever witnessed – the sun was setting over the mountains, and a herd of deer, complete with several stags, was resting by the river. I gaped in wonder.
No-else looked up from their papers.
It truly is a wonderful world. We just need to take the time to look at it.

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