Some of it is wonderfully practical. There are places I ache to visit, museums I long to wander, fossils I dream of collecting with muddy boots and sunburned shoulders, and so many of you I'd love to spend a day in the field with, swapping stories while splitting shale or scanning a cliff face for the tiniest hint of ancient life.
Those dreams are mostly a matter of time, opportunity, and perhaps convincing my bank account to cooperate.
But there are other wishes that no amount of planning can ever make possible.
If I could choose one impossible gift, it would be to step back into deep time. Not to change anything. Just to watch.
To stand unnoticed beneath the towering trees of the Jurassic and witness moments forever lost to us. The fierce ones, certainly. The great hunts and desperate escapes. But even more than those, I'd love to see the quiet moments. A parent watching over its young. Animals greeting one another. The ordinary lives hidden between the fossils we find millions of years later.
One of the scenes I return to again and again is this.
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Somewhere beyond the trees, insects sing, and the calls of unseen dinosaurs drift through the evening air.
A family of Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum moves silently into the shallows.
The immense adults wade with astonishing grace, each careful step sending gentle ripples across the lake. Between them, two youngsters splash through the water, still awkward in bodies that will one day become truly colossal.
Their impossibly long necks sway with effortless elegance as they browse from branches leaning over the water's edge, occasionally pausing as if simply enjoying the coolness of the evening.
There is no urgency. No violence. Only the quiet rhythm of another day drawing to a close in the Jurassic.
Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum lived about 160 million years ago in what is now China and is celebrated for possessing one of the longest necks ever to evolve. At an astonishing 15 metres (50 feet), its neck alone was longer than many entire dinosaurs.
Despite their immense size, these remarkable sauropods were peaceful browsers, sweeping those extraordinary necks through the forest canopy to feed on conifers, cycads, ferns, and other lush Jurassic vegetation. Their anatomy allowed them to forage across a huge area without constantly moving their massive bodies—an elegant solution for an animal that could exceed 25 metres (82 feet) in length.
Whenever I look at these magnificent giants, I'm reminded that not every giant in Earth's history was built for conflict. Some were architects of quiet landscapes, moving through ancient forests with remarkable gentleness.
They left no roar echoing across the valley, only soft footfalls, the rustle of leaves high in the canopy, and widening circles on the surface of a Jurassic lake as twilight settled over a world we know today only through stone.
