ELECTION stories, town-centre rebuild rows, rail horrors and a future misery of cuts.

Then a gentle breath of fresh air as I read about photographer Chris Brown's thoughts on nature.

Wildlife and nature are so easily taken for granted. Your own small garden or backyard, pathways, parks and streets can often reveal nature's side-by-side feel with animal and plant life forever changing.

My own favourite Bolton park is Leverhulme with its links to sports, streams, rivers and nature.

I frequently go on walks with friends and journeys to starting points are often relatively short.

Bolton is blessed with a real mixture of landscapes, some natural but many recovered from a past industrial age. Hilly woodlands, woodlands and fields. There are many canal walks, level pathways through areas where nature has reclaimed a beauty lost through man's activities.

Each town and village in Britain has its own patchwork of nature on its doorstep.

Watching feeding sparrows and blackbirds even help me relax as I fend off yet another cold call. World problems may not go away, but nature can, for a short while, calm the mind. I hope Chris Brown's exhibition at Harwood Library receives many visitors.

David Sharples,

Tarbet Drive,

Breightmet