Gather – Issue 4 (Current Issue)

As summer days stretch ahead, getting in or on the water is just one of the simple pleasures to look forward to at this time of year. What surrounds us affects us, and water in particular has a healing quality. Strolls by the sea, a dip in the pool, riding the waves or floating down river – being close to the water just makes you feel better. Sometimes that’s because it’s where we go to have fun, to get some exercise or spend time with friends and family. But it’s also one of the few spaces where we get to interact fully with Mother Nature in all her wild glory. Surfing, swimming and brisk beach walks don’t just refresh us physically, they open our minds outwards, blowing away ruminations and minutiae.

This is the experience of Dom and Carly who, with no sailing background, bought a 38ft boat and moved onto it in search of excitement, new horizons and ‘Robinson Crusoe-level stories’. Turn to page 80 to hear how living so close to the elements has taught them we are all at the mercy of nature’s ebb and flow, and wild adventure is possible in the UK.

Elsewhere, two police officers who also happen to be south coast surf buddies have hit on an inspired way to put this feel-good factor to use. Together they have created the Surfwell programme, designed to help other emergency workers deal with the pressures of the job by riding the waves. Read about its pioneering success on page 74.

All of this makes the torrent of stories about the terrible state of Britain’s waterways even more dismaying. Thriving rivers, coasts and canals should be a treasured part of our country’s future. Thankfully it’s within the power of all of us as individuals to bring about change, or at least to help clean up the mess. Find out how to take action and give our waterways some love on page 28.

Then, beachside, riverside or poolside, we are free to make the most of our blue spaces. To slide down sand dunes, lick ice-cream drips from our fingers (A cold treat, page 42) and capture it all on our cameras (summer photography tips, page 32). As American author Sandra Boynton so wisely said: ‘I live for summer.’