As a kid I knew more about the natural environment than I do now.

In school I was encouraged to identify trees, wild flowers and all sorts of bugs and animals. Living in a small coastal town at the mouth of Belfast Lough meant virtually all my free time was spent on, in or beside the sea. My knowledge of fish and their habitat grew and I could name most of the inhabitants of the local rock pools.

A small stream ran behind my house. I can't remember the number of times I came home with welly boots half full of water because I had been mindlessly enthusiastic in my stickleback hunting.

Today there are a lot less fish to discover in the lough and the stream was culverted over to allow for more housing.

I moved to England to forge on with my career and somewhere along the way lost touch with nature and let all that childhood knowledge and enthusiasm wither away.

How did I lose my connection with the coast and countryside?

I stopped paying attention to what was going on around me. My mind was filled with other concerns. I was seeing things without really looking at them. I stopped discovering, stopped accumulating a deeper knowledge and lost my fascination with the natural world.

This is a frustrating state for me when I think of where I have come from. My love of beautiful historic buildings drove me to become an architect. Later, my interest in how people think and feel encouraged me through a psychology degree. This background should have kept me connected to the countryside and the people who live and work in it - but it didn't, until I moved to the stunningly beautiful North Northumberland Coastal Plain.

This area of outstanding natural beauty is a dramatic, windswept strip that runs between two rivers, the Tweed and the Coquet. The western boundary is formed by the Northumberland Sandstone Hills and the eastern by the North Sea. The combination provides a kick-start to every sense.

I'm delving deeper into its landscape and seascape. I'm investigating plants and wildlife with renewed enthusiasm and absorbing the unique cultural heritage.

Northumberland has rekindled my childhood passion for discovery and reconnected me with nature. I love it for that reason and I'm going to do everything I can to help it thrive.