We moved from The Forest, where I knew the trees and their varieties, to the beautiful Derwent valley. The noticeable change for me was in the varieties of trees.

There are a lot of Sycamore. Members of the Acer/Maple family, they are everywhere. One book on local history referred to them as “the Derbyshire weed.”

In the spring a small forest began to grow on my garage roof. There’s a sycamore close by and the seeds come twirling down and find the gravel on the roof a perfect seed bed. They like my flower beds too.

I’ve been watching the seeds form this year and have noticed a huge variety in shape and size and began collecting them on walks.

I’ve installed a nature table in my new studio, where I spread them out and look more closely.

I was impressed by the twirling motion one sunny lunchtime, until I realised the twirlers were lime seeds from the huge trees across from us, and not sycamore.

I compared the two seeds by throwing them into the air. The lime twirled beautifully. The sycamore dropped like a stone.

I split the sycamore in two halves and threw them in the air. Off they went, helicoptering as f designed by da Vinci. Sycamore wings don’t fly as a pair. but individual seeds do – they helicopter.

It’s a tiny observation in the great scheme of things, but for me there is the more important lesson about attention.

The more you pay attention, the more you learn and understand.

Pay attention.

Attention is the most profitable resource on the planet these days. Google, Meta, AI and all the major platforms have built their fortunes by harvesting your attention.

You have only so much attention to give and the more it is taken away, the less you learn and understand.

So, turn off your phone and go and pay attention to something small that you’ve never considered before. You’ll learn and understand a lot more than you will by doomscrolling on instagram for a couple of hours.

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