Re-Rooting:People places perspective
Reflecting on our time away and returning from Australia to Yorkshire has heightened something elemental in me. Not just gratitude for travel, time and family, but a deeper awareness of earth, seasons, water and weather and how each landscape shapes the way we live inside our own skin, how we work, rest and play.
It’s been hard to put into words, the contrast. In Australia, the earth feels expansive. The light is high and the sun rises fast. The sky seems to stretch without interruption. Weather there often arrives more cleanly, bright heat, sudden rain, electric storms, ocean winds. The rhythm is outward. Early swims. Salt on skin. Dry warmth that settles into the bones. Even on cloudy days there seems a generosity of light. Water is vast and everywhere. The ocean commands attention and respect : for the rips, the swell, the creatures beneath the waves. Immersion is bracing and immediate. It makes you feel alive.
Yorkshire has such a different feel, somehow more subtle. The beauty is quieter, more contained. Dry stone walls, layer upon layer of green in the fields, moorland that feels steadfast. The weather changes its mind from one moment to the next. The light is softer, more nuanced. The landscape reveals itself slowly. There is a sense of depth here, maybe its the history in the stone, the living, breathing spongy moss. Familiarity in the curves of the hills. A sense of being held and cocooned rather than stretched. Water gathers and trickles rather than crashes. Rivers carve through limestone. Even the sound of rain against windows has a different intimacy.
There is an ease to life lived close to the ocean, early morning swims, salt and sun on skin and conversations held barefoot on sand. Crowds of people outside in the early light of day, to run on the coastal paths, swim, meet in cafés serving flat whites before most of the UK would have put the kettle on. A time to socialise, to start the day with a gentle momentum. Movement and exercise are seamlessly woven into the working week. There is a certain spaciousness in how time is held, less rush and hustle.
Returning home a stark contrast, a sense that heads are down, no-one is watching, people and nature getting on with their business, in their own introspective world. Hedgerows my companion as I walk.Rain softens and blurs the edges. Mornings cocooned in the warmth of home, theres a reluctance to leave. Coffee dates are mid morning and planned often weeks in advance, work and life stuff takes priority, the rest has to squeeze itself in, somehow or maybe not at all.
The early morning chorus begins before the house stirs. Blackbirds with their clear, fluted notes. Robins, persistent and bright. Wood pigeons, steady and familiar. Their song runs quietly through the edges of my day, so woven into ordinary life that I almost forget it is there. And yet it steadies me. It feels rooted. Constant.
In Sydney, the birds are unapologetic. Bold, theatrical, impossible to ignore. Their calls are louder, sharper, more declarative as though announcing themselves as the main event. They carry a brightness that matches the light and heat. In Yorkshire, the birdsong feels different. More conversational. Less performance, never showy. It threads through hedgerows and gardens with a kind of quiet continuity.
Both landscapes have their own music. Both shape how the day begins and how the nervous system settles. Living between them has made me more aware of how closely we exist alongside the natural world, and how profoundly it influences our internal state - whether we consciously register it or not.
Coaching online with clients in the UK while I’m the other side of the world. The time difference a funny kind of magic: early mornings in Sydney, late evenings in the UK. Yet the connection doesn’t change. If anything, it reminded me how much we can carry with us - steadiness, presence, listening - wherever we are.
Alongside that, chatting with doctors in Australia, on the beach, over coffee, in homes and with friends and family. Conversations about workload, identity, rest, meaning. Different healthcare structures, different climates, yet many of the same human concerns. The need for space and support, for perspective, to feel part of something larger than the immediate pressures of work. It’s left me with a deep curiosity about how the two systems and countries affect how doctors show up, feel valued and keep well.
What I’ve reflected on most is how environment shapes us in ways we often underestimate. In Sydney, the scale of sky and sea invites outward energy. In Yorkshire, the contours of land invite inward reflection. Neither is better. Each offers something distinct. Spending time between the two countries has sharpened my appreciation of how environment shapes our nervous system. Sea air and open sky invite a certain alertness and energy. Moorland, hedgerows, and birdsong invite a different kind of settling. Neither is superior. Each carries its own medicine.
I am noticing that returning home is not only about geography and climate but more about rhythm. The body recognises familiar weather systems. The nervous system settles into a climate it has known before. Even grey skies carry a kind of belonging and there is something grounding in that familiarity.
What I’m bringing back with me is a renewed respect for light and time outdoors as non-negotiable foundations rather than luxuries. A reminder that proximity to nature shifts the nervous system more reliably than any “wellbeing” trend or strategy. A commitment to protect space in the diary for walking, even on grey days. A conscious decision to let birdsong rather than inbox set the tone of the morning.
Re-rooting, for me, is about honouring the landscapes that have formed me, while choosing deliberately how I inhabit them now. Carrying the expansiveness of one hemisphere into the steadier, quieter rhythms of the other.
Coming home hasn’t diminished what I love about Australia but it has clarified what grounds me in Yorkshire.
Keen to invite others to share in the magic of Yorkshire, I’ve been on the lookout for the perfect retreat spot for ages; a space that epitomises that sense of feeling held, cosy yet expansive, charming yet comfortable. A place to be nourished, to feel a sense of ease, calm and experience deep rest.
I’m so happy to say that I’ve found it! Langcliffe Hall near Settle is steeped in family history, with the perfect mix of old world charm and comfort. Surrounded by dramatic hills, ancient forests and medicinal gardens, Langcliffe Hall, is an integral and unique part of the rest and the medicine of this midsummer escape.
The epitome of lived-in-luxury, Langcliffe Hall has been in Charlotte’s family for more than 400 years. Nestled in the Dales, this cosy, character-filled manor is filled with oak-panelled drawing rooms, wood-burning stoves, and luxurious bedrooms full of history and old-world charm, with deep, claw-footed bath tubs, four-poster beds, and tucked-away reading nooks that look out over the walled gardens, wildflower meadows, and woodlands.
Rest in Medicine is a retreat designed specifically for doctors. Taking place over the Solstice weekend, this is your invitation to step away from clinical practice and hectic daily life to find ways to slow down and explore what you need to help sustain yourself and your work.
Find out more here
I’m so excited to be sharing this gathering and I can’t wait to see you. Any questions do email.
Alison x
“Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.”
Listen to audio here