Every day (well, mostly every day) as I settle in the office chair I am trying to develop a routine involving looking at three books; Ian Dale’s On this day in politics, Andy Beer’s Every Day Nature and finaly, The journals of Gilbert White. The great things about all three of these books is that they are not a linear narrative. They run day by day. Ian’s is one page per day, Andy’s is just a couple of paragraphs per day. Gilbert’s is just one sentence per day – I’m not reading just one sentence – a double page. All this doesn’t take long, just a few minutes.
Gilbert was born in 1720, and lived in Selborn. He was an amateur naturalist. He makes very simple observations; Woodpecker Laughs, Flights of snow, Wild geese appear in a flock – that kind of thing.
I bought a small A5 week to a view diary. I record pressure, relative humidity, temperature (min, current and max) and rain. Just occasionally I see or hear something. I want to write it in the book (journal!), but I also input the data in to a spreadsheet, and chart all the measurements. Even though only the first month is coming to an end, I am building up some interesting charts, here’s the pressure chart – yes, I was eager to get going, hence th incvclusion of half of December.
I’m sure that there is more that I could record. Part of it becomming a bit more observant.
Bills Posts 