Wildþing: about us

Wildþing UK is a website about going into the wild (mainly in the British Isles, but there is a Further Wild out there not to be neglected).  In all its variety, the free, wild world is to be breathed in and enjoyed.

Modernity keeps us locked indoors and we can forget what it is to be out in the real world, beyond the lulling comfort of the square wall and regulated temperatures, as if we were babes in an incubator, swaddled against reality.  We move from room to room, and straight into a car or a train, injected directly into a workshop or an office or a shop – no wonder few people know what to do or to wear when faced with the fresh air and weather.  It is not a healthy lifestyle.

Nature, the outside world, is crafted by a greater artistic hand than anything you can see in a closed room.  Go and see the wild.

The site started off an experiment so that I can see what can be done with WordPress, but then, it is liberating to write about walking, cycling and the outside life – not as liberating as actually going walking, cycling and living the outside life, but something to be done.

Here we will build up more articles, information and resources, things of interest, and, well, I will when I get a moment – I’m just going out.

What’s that “þ” thing?

It’s the letter þ, thorn, pronounced as a “th”.  It is an English letter, but one that dropped out of common use in the Middle Ages, replaced by “th”, especially when printing came along.  It survived in Scots until the end of the seventeenth century.  We use it in out name because we don’t believe in being restrained, even by the limits of the modern alphabet!

(You can type it on screen in Microsoft programmes with “fe” then Alt+X, or with the number pad type Alt+231.  In a post you can put “þ”)