Nature is, by and large, to be found out of doors...

...a location where...there are never enough comfortable chairs.

I like Fran Lebowitz's wit, I'm sure she'd be gratified to learn, but I don't for a single second share her feelings about The Great Outdoors.

Here she is again:

“Now, nature, as I am only too aware, has her enthusiasts, but on the whole, I am not to be counted among them. To put it bluntly, I am not the type who wants to go back to the land; I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel.”

So, it was as a card-carrying Nature Enthusiast, that I settled down in front of the television last night to watch the first episode of BBC's Frozen Planet 

 Absolutely stunning. I was completely entranced. It was for the beauty of the polar landscape that I wrote The Melting - a screenplay that's a sort of sequel to The Snow Queen. (Steven Spielberg apply here.)

However, there were times when I had to run out of the room. I simply CANNOT watch animals killing other animals. Yes, I KNOW it's the way of things, only natural, the circle of life...and death, but I can't watch it.

Awwww sweet! A cute sea-lion and a penguin. No, NOT sweet. The sea-lion is HUNGRY. He chases the penguin because he wants to eat it. Yes, it was comical to see the pair of them floundering about on land but oh, the shout of triumph I gave when the penguin escaped from the sea-lion's jaws and swam off into the ocean.

 Amazing - the cooperative behaviour of killer whales who hunt together, intentionally creating huge waves that either wash the seal off the ice or break the ice into smaller pieces...

But I couldn't watch it. Or if I DID watch it at all it was through the narrow slits between my fingers, clamped firmly over my eyes.

It's not just the polar ice cap that's melting. It's my heart.