FLAMING June.

It's my favourite month, and not just because my birthday is in it (passed, so don't worry about a card!).

June is when we are entitled to expect some proper sun.

Ok, last weekend didn't fly - Saturday was monsoon, and Sunday was a succession of showers, sunshine and showers again. However, I did get in a few hours weeding and some pleasant sitting in the garden. Let's hope this weekend is a scorcher.

I am a great believer in positive and negative influences affecting us. I don't just mean money, people, employment, family, I am talking about nature having an effect on how we feel and contributing to our lives.

Don't worry, I am not going to get all New Age on you. Or not completely. Sure, we make our own luck, as creatures of free will, and must take the credit and the blame for the outcomes of our decisions. But I can't help feeling there is more to it.

Indeed take the weather. You might be a devotee of SAD - seasonal affective disorder - and agree that lack of light and warmth are genuine drags on good health and mental wellbeing.

The evidence is strong, and while some individuals sail through all seasons neither up nor down, for many of us late winter can be a debilitating time.

Nature is about balance and renewal, so we hope the spring can in turn revitalise and refresh, then summer can be enjoyed and exploited for the good things it brings. Whether we realise it or not, the seasons have considerable effect on our wellbeing.

So what's this all got to do with health and fitness? Do lawyers cheer up in the warm weather? Do middle-aged men gambol in the sunshine? Do runners run better when it is balmy and dry?

Well, probably yes is the answer to the last three.

I certainly enjoy fine weather, regarding it as morally reprehensible and/or sinful to let a good day go by.

My clients - and also now viewers to the Riverside show on the new STV Glasgow channel - have seen that my office is a cupboard of a room with no window to the outside.

As I sit typing and phoning all day, I pine for the touch of sun on my cheek or the comfort of a warm temperature to justify no tie and shirtsleeves.

So the minute we close the office I head out to the fresh air. An early evening run, cycling, even some pre-dinner hedge-trimming are all to be enjoyed.

Relaxing in the garden with a glass of white wine and the smell of dinner cooking tops them all.

Nature is there to be experienced. Yes, it is ideal to be actively exercising outside, whether athletically or just accidentally as you walk, bike, promenade, garden, pop out to the ice cream van for a double nugget, but you can just take time to stop and stare, as the William Henry Davies poem has it.

Looking at a landscape is good for the soul, going out at night and looking up into a starry night sky is uplifting, and sitting in a summer garden cannot help but refuel the spirit.

ONE thing I took to many years ago was to learn how to identify most of our birds.

I did this when the First Lady and I bought our starter flat more than 30 years ago. It was in Busby overlooking the White Cart, and by chance I spotted an odd-looking bird climbing spirally up a tree.

My late mum had an old copy of the Observer Book of Birds. I borrowed it, and was bowled over to find out there is a wren called a treecreeper, that does indeed creep round the trunks of trees.

In the back communal garden I later saw herons, wagtails, even one bright day a kingfisher darted off a branch into the water.

I'm not an official twitcher, but I do love to watch and identify birds in my garden still. The variety can be amazing even in the south side of Glasgow. I can't put a figure on it, or gauge an exact benefit, but I am the better for the experience.

I do need to run and suchlike to tone the body, but I get an essential mental/spiritual workout by joining in with my little corner of our universe.

In our modern complicated society technology has given us innumerable tools to enhance life or bring enjoyment.

But you can get a real benefit in health and fitness just by putting all that to one side and going back to nature.

It may be in the countryside, the parks, mountains, the coasts that all grace our country.

But it's also right outside your door.