Monthly Archive

Only a few of us managed to go to this but the weather was great and we did some games with the other groups in the District out on the grass: a football version of rounders, the Giants-Wizards-Elves game and some parachute game then a big game of Sharks resulting in an injury to Poppy in our group but soon plastered and she was up and running. We didn’t stay til the end where other groups did performances and ate Ploughmans and enjoyed a ceilidh, next year…

On the way home from the City Farm today I was explaining to Jude that, if you were careful, you could eat some wild p

lants. I took a bite of the root of a ‘hedge garlic’ or somesuch onion-related plant to show him (OK I admit, slightly cockily). About 2 minutes later my mouth nearly exploded with searing pain and my throat felt like it was closing up.

When I explained the sorry tale to Nige he laughed and said it was old permaculture joke that it’s easily mixed up with Lords and Ladies which has mild sulphuric acid or similar in its root.

Ho ho ho.

This isn’t the first time I have failed to show any bushcraft prowess. So far we showed the Woodchips how to put up a tent with no tent, have at least once locked everyone out of the building, forgotten to take a penknife to cut open oranges for juicing in the park

Weather very sunny so we mooched about in the Quaker Meeting House garden. We had a circle time and found out how everyone’s holiday had been. We then played Duck Duck Goose and did some ‘dot voting’ - I had a list of crafts and activities we could do and everyone got to put a sticker next to their favourite 3, tent putting-up, cardboard cities and making windmills being the favourites so far…

I told the story of the Tortoise and the Magic Tree and we sang our song. Nice and laid back today!

Nige opened the session with some running around in the hall, which sorted him out and the kids seemed to fancy doing it too (ho ho ho!). This was followed by a longish circle time where everyone had the chance to say something and to think about their Woodcraft names (so far we have the likes of Sleeping Tiger, Cherry Blossom, Rambling Rose, Polar Bear and Snowflake Star).

Gem then made pine cone bees with the children - wrapping yellow wool around the cones and around the netting wings, they looked fab and they all went into the garden to buzz them around to say hello to one another! Thanks Gem!

Paula told the story of the Monkey and the Papa God, about a monkey who loved honey. Pete played Abumdie on the guitar and the children were picking up the actions. We closed with the Sparkling Seahorses song and alot of loud shouting ‘goodbye’, a sort of primal scream therapy I think! Oh and Lindsey made us all a grand cuppa, thanks to all.