Emma Mitchell doesn’t want to beat around the hawthorn bush, she suffers with depression, and has done for twenty-five years. In 2009, the stresses of a city job became too much and she decided to move her family into a cottage in the Cambridgeshire Fens. She swapped days in the office for walks in the wood. There she began to get better. And better. Her encounters with nature proving to be as medicinal as any therapy or drug.

In Emma’s hand-illustrated diary, she takes us with her as she stomps the paths and trails around her home and further afield, sharing her nature finds and tracking the lives of local flora and fauna over the course of a year. Reflecting on how these encounters impact her mood, she explains the science behind such changes, calling on new research into forest bathing and our innate urge to be among leafy, furred and feathered things.

Filled with Emma’s beautiful drawings, paintings and photography, this is a book for those who want to bring a little piece of the outdoors with them, whether you struggle with low mood or just love discovering more about the natural world.