Making boats out of leaves and sticks when it’s cold… and when the spring comes; Spotting river monsters; Playing with tides and waves by the Thames in spring; Looking for otters and cygnets; Finding a way down to the river bank.
129 – Getting down to the river bank in Pontypridd
Saturday 23 August. Cloudy. 20°C.
We’re up in Pontypridd going to the Lido and we pass over a bridge where you can see the river bank. It’s really pretty and there are kids playing by the water. Coming back we decide to get down there ourselves… we’ve never tried before but it’s straightforward enough if a bit steep. There are big rocks and you have to clamber down. It takes B a while. She’s finding it slippy but she gets there in the end.
The rocks by the stream are large and it’s easy to draw on them with water – but they wobble as you step on them. B is less interested with them than the large branch of a horse chestnut tree complete with lots of conkers that’s fallen by the rocks. We take them home… to see what happens as they get older.
134 – Looking for otters and cygnets by the river bank
Sunday 17 August. Sunny and hot. 25°C.
My mum’s suggestion this. She’s been talking to someone whose seen otters at night in the local river. Ever since she’s been walking down trying to see them – and the swan and her cygnets who were near her flat and have since completely disappeared – so we’re walking over to hunt with her.
We don’t find them of course. I imagine you need to be still and quiet and come at the right time. We’ve done none of these things but we find lots of other things. There’s slime in the water we try and write a 134 in (doesn’t work) so we use the plants growing by the bank instead. B finds a few she hasn’t seen before. Then we get lost on the way home. It’s annoyingly hot and we’re unprepared for it so we’re all fairly grumpy about it.
251 – Making boats and racing them
Friday 25 April. Sunny. 16°C.
We’re exploring the local woods and find our way down to a wide stream with stepping stones and stones underneath. It’s perfect for making boats. There’s a reasonable current so we can race them and lots of places around to find leaves and sticks.
We start with the basics. We find a large dock leaf and a reasonable sized stick and let them both go. The leaf gets caught on a bigger stick and the little stick bypasses it and wins. We try again and this time make a little boat out of a leaf and a stick… it doesn’t do so well. The holes we’ve made in the leaf to get the stick in make it more waterlogged.
We have a little motor which we haven’t tried out yet so B tries attaching a leaf to that with wool and sets it off. I wade across the stream to catch it but it just goes round and round in circles before sinking so we go back to leaves. A bit further downstream B finds a lovely sycamore leaf and throws it in and we follow it from the bank as it bobs along.
Afterwards I realise that we haven’t really made boats at all. Unlike the January challenge below which involved some serious crafting time (if rushed because of the cold) this was far more experimental. It was fun though. We’ll definitely do it again and maybe bring some more materials to try out next time.
262 – Playing with tides and waves by the Thames
Sunday 13 April. Cloudy. 16°C.
We’re back on the South Bank in London two days after we didn’t have time to stop (see Challenge 264 – water pistols at sunset) and today we have time. Not only that, it’s an hour before high tide (the Thames is very tidal here) and we’re by the little beach near the Oxo Tower where you can actually get down to the water. There’s a few families down there having some unexpected sandy time in the middle of the metropolis.
B and I have one task. We’re going to try and write a 262 in the incoming water line and photo it before the waves wash it away. There’s only a little bit of wet sand to do it in. This is definitely one of the most fun things we’ve done so far. The waves are relentless. B tries and tries but it keeps beating her to it. She’s got trainers on too so she has to keep dancing out of the water to stop her feet getting wet. She finally manages it but I don’t get to the camera before the wave comes.
Finally we realise there’s a bit of wider sand a bit further down and she manages to make a good big number. Typically the waves then take AGES to wash it away. We spend a bit more time exploring the teeny space (which is getting very small now the tide is almost up). After being chased up onto the wall we both get fascinated with a little hole in the sand which sends bubbles up every time the waves wash over it.
Further up river we spend some time watching things being swept up river on the tides. There’s some rubbish of course, but also big wooden logs which bop below the water and back up again. We find some old leaves and throw them in to see where they go.
347 – Playing by the river in winter… and spotting monsters.
Sunday 19 January. Cloudy. 3°C.
For the last few weeks, at the mouth of the Taff river leading into Cardiff Bay, there’s lived a monster. B spotted it before Christmas. There were lots of storms and one of them delivered what appears to be most of a tree upside down in the water. I was tentatively planning a beach day today but B was having none of it. “No, I don’t like the beach”.
Me: Well, what do you want to do? We could go and see the monster?
B: Yes! And we can make boats and race them.
She always comes up with the best ideas. We find a spot where we can get right down to the lakeside to see if we can see the monster properly… and find another even better one! We’re really excited. There are different boats passing by – the motordriven ferries and the skulls with rowers in. When the motor boats go by, they make waves which rock up to the monster.
B looks for bramble leaves to make sails for her stick boat. She makes two holes in each and pushes the stick through. I try a more avant garde model using a thistle and reeds. Neither look overly floatable but its 3°C and I reckon there’s a time and a place for crafting carefully and it’s not now. Anyway, I’ve got distracted with little orange bits of wood in the pebbles at the water side and start making a 347. B gets distracted with more sticks. “Let’s see if we can throw them on the monsters back”. With apologies to the little boat that goes around the lake clearing up debris we have several attempts at getting them to land.
We get distracted with a big trunk of wood which has been left on the shore. We work out we can move it together, one on each end. B wants to try and get it into the water but the logistics of holding one end only overcome us and I manage to drop it on B’s ankle. She’s not too badly maimed but not happy and we head home.
