⚙️ Table Talk #167: The Ancient Art of Going Outside 🌳
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Written by Luke Hemsley
TABLE TALK #167
Some time of late, the outdoors got an agent.
Walking became hiking. Swimming became wild swimming. Sitting under a tree turned into forest bathing. And if you plunge yourself into freezing water before 7am, you’re no longer drunk - you’re optimising your nervous system.
Today’s Table Talk is about the curious rebirth of the great outdoors.
🍝 MAIN COURSE 🍝
Take wild swimming.
For most of history, this was simply known as “being in water outdoors”. Victorians swore by sea air and cold plunges. Ancient civilisations built entire cultures around bathing. Human intuition has long told us that water does something restorative to the brain.
But somewhere along the way, adding the word “wild” transformed it from an activity into an identity. Suddenly there are neoprene gloves, towelling robes the size of tents, and conversations about “cold exposure” conducted with the seriousness of geopolitical analysis.
Likewise forest bathing - a phrase that sounds less like a walk and more like something Gwyneth Paltrow might recommend alongside an expensive herbal mist.
In reality, it’s based on the idea that spending time among trees tends to make people feel calmer and less deranged - which makes sense. Most of human history unfolded outdoors. Of course our brains like woods.
Still, perhaps the modern framing matters.
Because if calling it forest bathing persuades stressed accountants to step away from their laptops and wander through some pines for an hour, then perhaps there is magic in the marketing.
The same applies to hiking.
Once upon a time, Brits simply “went for a walk”. Occasionally a long one. Perhaps with a flask. Now, a gentle incline in the Peak District gets treated like a minor Arctic expedition. There are specialist socks. Electrolyte tablets. Trail snacks with the texture of compressed loft insulation.
Nordic walking feels similarly ambitious. A pastime involving poles, purposeful strides, and the expression of someone on an urgent diplomatic mission.
And yes, it’s easy to poke fun, but in fairness, there’s also something rather cheering about the fact people are rediscovering these things at all.
Fresh air. Movement. Water. Mud. Trees. Mild discomfort followed by disproportionate satisfaction. None of it is new, but perhaps that’s the point.
Modern life has become so relentlessly indoor, sedentary and screen-shaped that rediscovering basic human pleasures suddenly feels profound.
Perhaps every generation needs its own language for that.
“Forest bathing” may sound a bit ridiculous. But so does “going outside to stare at trees because your nervous system feels cooked”.
And if a shinier name encourages more people to leave the house, touch grass, and return happier for it, then perhaps we should all stop rolling our eyes quite so hard.
Even if “hike” is still, in many cases, doing some extremely heavy lifting.
🍮 SWEET ENDINGS 🍮
These trends aren’t really inventions. They’re reincarnations.
A glossy reminder that humans tend to feel better when they leave the house, see daylight and occasionally stand in cold water complaining about it.
Not exactly revolutionary. Just easy to forget.
🍷 WHAT'S NEW
FROM
WEDNESDAY'S DOMAINE? 🍷
The main news comes from the Hemsley household - I’ve been swapping bottles of wine for piles of nappies, having welcomed our second child recently.
The last couple of weeks have been a happy haze of feeds, broken sleep and cold cups of tea. They’ve also given me perspective and space from the business, something that’s often hard yet always proves so valuable.
Despite running on fumes, I feel more energised than ever about what we’re doing, enormously proud of the small but impactful changes we’re affecting in so many of your lives and more convinced than ever of the joy that we take from time spent with family and friends.
Until next time,
Luke x