Love being human, you learn something every day. Did you know this?

There’s a charming old shop near me, tucked near a railway bridge and I have developed an irrational affection for it.

Recently I heard it might disappear.

My brain immediately supplied the replacement: some monstrous apartment block or shiny office building muscling its way into the space. Mind you, I have absolutely no evidence this is what will happen.

Around the same time, I’d been feeling oddly flat, even though Spring has arrived here in Australia. I don’t even need a calendar to herald Spring; on seasonal cue, my hay fever goes feral.

Usually, spring gives me a lift. There’s earlier morning light (which I love, as I can head out walking sooner), the longer days and that sense that everything is waking up again.

But this year, underneath all that, I’ve been feeling something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Ennui sounds too grandiose, it’s not quite melancholy either. Then I came across a word for it.

Solastalgia.

Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht created the word to describe the distress people feel when the place they call home changes around them in ways they neither chose nor wanted.

It has sometimes been described as homesickness while you are still at home.

Because environmental change isn’t only something happening somewhere else, to forests and coastlines you see on the news. Sometimes it is much closer and much less dramatic, like the tree that vanishes from your street.

The place is still yours, but something about it no longer feels so familiar.

Luckily, for an environmental philosopher, Albrecht wasn’t all gloom and doom and also gave us another word.

Soliphilia.

This describes a love of place that makes you want to care for it. I adore the word, if it’s possible to love a noun.

I’m drawn to the idea because when I feel powerless, my instinct is always to go looking for some kind of antidote, something that gives me back some agency.

Then I came across what felt like soliphilia in action.

Earlier this year, Surendra Singh Choudhary (also known as Bittu Tabahi) started cleaning the Ajnar River near his home in Madhya Pradesh, India.

He literally got into the river and started pulling out the rubbish. At first, people made fun of him and called him crazy.

But he kept at it for months, largely on his own, removing plastic, weeds and accumulated waste. The before-and-after photographs are extraordinary.

Eventually, millions of people noticed and the Chief Minister of his state honoured him. Boyan Slat, founder of The Ocean Cleanup, responded with three words: ‘Come work for us.’

Bittu Tabahi’s story gives me so much hope.

One person sees one damaged place close to home and decides to care.

PS: I’m much better, even though my hay fever remains committed to main-character drama.