It’s been around five years give or take a few months that this design has been in development. I’ve read a multitude of books and taken a collection of online courses to help complement what I was researching. I have sat in contemplation trying to figure out the meaning of my life, I’ve spent endless hours deep in conversation with my internal voice. Throughout this time, I’ve been in full-time employment managing an IT support desk. During the COVID chaos, I was working twelve-hour days helping to keep the company functioning. Not to forget, I’ve also moved house and worked on completing this diploma. In short, my days have been quite full.

During this period, I can confidently confirm my mental health has been all over the place. Yet here I stand at the point in this design that I gather my thoughts together once more to see where I go next.

After gathering all the information I have learned about myself during the time this design has been evolving I have now spent a month thinking about how I use this information and how a final design best represents the aim I started with.

A question I have asked myself is: Overall, after all the time I’ve spent researching this design, what is the state of my mental health?

The answer is that it’s quite good overall. I still have periods of high stress, this is mostly due to working in a stressful environment managing an IT support desk, added to this being on-call 24/7 on a week-on, week-off basis when I’m unable to switch off from work increases my stress levels. I also need to do the usual things like clean the house and tend to the gardens along with maintaining my parent's garden.

Conclusion so far

As this design has progressed it has become more and more apparent the thing that brings me joy is nature. This acknowledgement has directed the final design into an activity-based solution with four key elements: Foraging, Birdwatching, Walking, and Fishing.

The countryside surrounding the town of Richmond can provide the location for all these activities to take place. This adds value to the design due to the fact it is locally based, powered by feet, along with using minimal resources and equipment. Parts of the design will also provide me with food helping to reduce the environmental costs involved with the food industry. The permaculture ethics of earth care, people care, and fair share have been important considerations in the decision-making process for this design. The result is a sustainable solution to improve my mental health.      

Of all the things I have listed in the observation section, I have carefully chosen four elements that all overlap and willingly invite many more separate elements into them. Most importantly all involve being out in nature.

Foraging

Foraging ticks so many boxes for this design solution. It allows me to disconnect from the constant chatter that goes on inside my mind. When out foraging my focus is on the here and now, I’m moving through the landscape observing, searching, and wondering. Being out in my local environment I feel connected to nature, to the land that I have grown up in, the land that my parents and grandparents before me have walked. The countryside talks to me, it shares stories of a distant past, of a time before the trees were cleared to make the fields. Foraging provides the breathing space for me to let go in, releasing stress and leading to improved mental health. I also arrive home with high-quality nutritional foods that often cannot be bought in the shops.

Birdwatching

From a young boy, I have been fascinated with birds, still today the fascination continues. I’m always looking for birds so the obvious inclusion for a design solution helping to improve my mental health is birdwatching. Of course, included here you can add watching other wildlife, along with the identification of plants, and butterflies. The list is endless, but I will focus on birds as they have a special place in my heart.

Walking

With a focus on sustainability and the simple fact that the local countryside is diverse and beautiful, the obvious mode of transport for this design would be on foot.  I enjoy walking in nature and it’s something I regularly do. What I do not is spend enough time doing it, or if I am doing it I’m often rushing back home to do something more pressing. Allowing myself the time to be out walking for longer periods where I can enjoy the local countryside is paramount for a design aimed and improving my mental health.

Fishing   

As a boy, I used to go fishing all the time, it holds so many memories for me. In most of these memories is Justin. In our younger days, we used to always be found down the river fishing or when it got too hot swimming. I’ve been saying that I want to go fishing again for the past few years, but sadly I’ve never been able to make the time. This has been a particular disappointment. To reconnect with the river is important for me on so many levels. Fishing will release emotions that other means would be unable to do, and what better place to let these go than by the river Swale.

Weekend Wild Food Forage Feast

Overview – Weekend Wild Food Forage Feast is more than just a mouthful to say, it is a whole meal. Without sounding too much like a slogan for a TV commercial the idea here is to be able to cook on a weekend with wild food ingredients. How can this happen? you’ve guessed it, I need to go out foraging first, and when do I have to most time? You are getting good at this, it’s on a weekend, hence Weekend Wild Food Forage Feast. The WWFFF franchise will be coming to the countryside near you soon... (please read the small print for all terms and conditions).

Objective – To spend more time out in nature foraging for wild foods that will be brought home and used to cook with.

Guidelines – Any wild food foraged must be within walking distance of where I live.

Reasoning – Foraging is my number one switch-off from the chatter activity to do. It allows me to visit many different areas around the town depending on what I’m foraging for or the time of year.

Benefits - My physical and mental health will be improved by spending more time out in nature along with the walking that will be involved. It’s also a great opportunity to learn more about the local wild foods growing around the town. As a side benefit, I get to eat high-quality nutritionally dense local foods with zero food miles.  

Equipment – Cutting utensils, mushroom brush, bags, pockets.

Schedule – Immediate start date following the different foraging seasons.

The year-long bird watch

Overview – As the title declares, this activity will be a birdwatch encompassing a whole year.   

Objective – Running from June 1^st I will begin a birdwatch that will end on May 31^st. During this period of a year, I will identify and write down each different species of bird I see.

Guidelines - The only guideline is that only birds that I have seen which are within walking distance of where I live will be allowed to be included in the species count. To note, birds spotted on a ten-day walk to the coast and back will not be included, all birds need to be spotted local to the town.   

Reasoning – The idea here is to encourage me to spend more time out walking and visiting different parts of the local area in search of birds. It will also provide opportunities to sit in nature in the hope of adding an elusive bird to the list.  

Benefits – Spending more time walking or sitting in nature will help improve both my physical and mental health. It will also be good to improve my knowledge of local birds, I have a few grey areas, such as warblers, and small moorland birds.   

Equipment needed – Binoculars

Schedule – Immediate start date, annual thereafter running from 1^st June – 31^st May

Walking the Landscapes

Overview – I live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country where we are fortunate to have a wide selection of different landscapes around the town such as meadows, riverbanks, hedge backs, moorland, ancient woodlands, and plantations, along with arable and grass fields. The best way to get to know a landscape is to walk it many times for many years.   

Objective – Using my weekly walks, expand upon the landscapes I currently tend to often walk by adding more variation in the form of the landscapes found around the town. Some of the longer walks will include all the different landscapes.  

Guidelines – This is a local walking activity so all walks start and finish at home and must be within a reasonable walking distance.  

Reasoning – I enjoy walking the same paths year on year, by adding different landscapes to my walks I will be not only walking further I’ll also be out in nature for longer periods. There are also that many good local places to walk I can easily fill a whole day walking.

Benefits – The added longer walks will be good for my physical and mental health. When out walking I often get to meet some very interesting people.

Equipment – Pockets to put my hands in.

Schedule – Immediate start date, increasing time assigned to walking once this diploma is complete.

Tenkara Fishing

Overview – Tenkara is a method of fly fishing developed in the mountains of Japan, it is a very minimalistic form of fishing.  

Objective – Learn this method of fishing by taking up its practice on the river Swale.

Guidelines – The only waters to be fished our those accessible on foot from where I live.    

Reasoning – I heard about Tenkara in 2016 and became fascinated with its simplicity, and how well it would work in places on the river swale here in Richmond that would otherwise be difficult to fish. 

Benefits – This form of fishing involves walking and reading a river in search of places fish would be expected to be found. With Tenkara you are constantly moving from fishing spot to fishing spot coving large sections of a river on one fishing trip. This will be good for my physical and mental health. The greatest benefit to my mental health will come from the immersion in the hunt, allowing me to switch off from the everyday chatter taking place in my mind allowing me to be in the moment where thoughts and nature mingle together.

Equipment – Tenkara rod and tackle, waders, fishing license.

Schedule – 25^th March 2023 to coincide with the start of the trout season.

The SUE Scale - Subjective Units of Experience

I’ve been using the SUE scale daily since taking my first EFT course in September 2018. I’ve found it a very simple tool to use to gauge my mental health. The SUE Scale which stands for Subjective Units of Experience and has a negative range from -10 to 0, and a corresponding positive range from 0 to +10 (For more info see appendix). Using this tool, I’ve been documenting how I feel, what my stress levels are, along with my overall mental health by making a note of these for when I have woken up in the morning, before work, mid-day, after I finish work, and finally, before I go to bed.

Along with the SUE scale I also make additional notes on the things I’ve been eating throughout the day, the supplements I’ve been taking,  the kinds of activities I’ve been doing, if work has been stressful, and how much time I’ve spent exercising, reading, how I view my relationship is going, the time I go to bed, the time I awake, how much sleep I’ve had, the quality of my sleep, and dream quality. This may sound a bit extreme, but I mostly do it retrospectively each morning for the previous day. The process takes a few minutes and most things do not change very much so there is a lot of copy and paste taking place in the spreadsheet that I use to document everything.

The result of this is I have a fair amount of data to look at and observe patterns. From these patterns, I will be able to see how the above activities are affecting my mental health. I have data going back to when I started my diploma in May 2016. In 2018, I changed the scale I had been using to the SUE Scale.

Reading

I’m building into this design another favourite pass time of mine, that of reading. I’m not using reading here in the maintenance section as a tool to help me relax, rather it’s going to be used to help keep me on track and keep focused on the design.

Let me explain, what has become apparent in the research part of this design is the evolving reading list (see appendix) and how it has expanded to include more and more books on natural history as the realisation started to dawn on me that this is the very topic that takes my thoughts to a place of wonder bringing joy into my day.

As part of the design maintenance, I will keep checking my reading list to understand what I’ve been reading. I’ll use this information along with the SUE Scale and the additional notes to make any necessary tweaks if I start to see a decrease in my mental health. A simple tweak could be to read a few inspirational books on nature.

Observe and interact, Design from patterns to details. it’s in the maintenance section that these two permaculture principles come into their own. Permaculture design is about solutions; therefore, I’m always observing the patterns taking place in my everyday life.  The principle, apply self-regulation and accept feedback is now important in the maintenance stage along with valuing renewable resources and services. I’m at the point where I am integrating rather than segregating the things I need to be doing to improve my mental health.

The maintenance stage is about looking at the whole system and using the permaculture principles as the guide to obtain a yield in this case in the form of great mental health. Through using small and slow solutions, I’m producing no waste and using and valuing diversity to creatively use and respond to the changes taking place in my daily life. All of this is carried out mindful of the permaculture ethics, earth care, people care and fair share. This is pure and simple permaculture applied to thoughts.