Dear LPG, 

Like most of the LPG reading folk I suspect I am getting older and that is a fact.  As I have travelled to the point of life’s journey where I find myself now, I think that I have learned as many of life’s secrets as the next man (or lady).

Every time I achieve a success I celebrate it and, while I count being able to negotiate the internet and cook some of the more exotic dishes the world has to offer among my more recent achievements, I like to try something new every year by way of a pastime.

I think it is true to say that I am an older person who is always looking for new things to do with my time and focussing my mind is high on my priority list of benefits that I am looking for when it comes to learning something new.  

While technology is a good way to do this, I feel it is also good to get out and about with nature while the weather permits and getting into the garden helps.  But after tending my plants, I wanted to find a more spiritual way to connect with nature.  I have a couple of like-minded friends and last year we tried tree hugging, but with a satisfaction rate of zero out of three after a considerable number of attempts we have decided that there has to be a certain quality needed that none of us possess because that special ‘at one with the wood connection’ that I think you are supposed feel was not there, and every now and then a bug running up a tree trunk could really put you off.

Now that it is a little warmer, getting out into the fresh air is something we want to try again, and I have come across something else that the internet revealed as mentally therapeutic.  Stone or rock balancing appears to be another way of experiencing oneness with our environment, although there are some schools of thought that define it as vandalism.  

So, this year my two friends and I hope to have a go on a very small scale.  We don’t feel the need to show the rest of the world our inevitable initial failures, or to balance our minds at the expense of lifting rocks so heavy that our backs pay the price. 

I have worked out that smooth stones are key which is why people tend to work near water, the ultimate natural stone-smoothing agent, but we have decided to bring two or three small ones home to practice on.

From what I have seen on the internet, it takes great concentration, so managing to get one stone to stay on the top of another will be challenging enough for us and, unlike with the tree hugging, success will be easier to measure.  Either they will balance, or they won’t!

AR. Catford.

AR has found us a few tips…

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