We have a go at a woodland walk with a friend and learn a lot. Ideas on how to avoid moaning, channelling energy, spotting issues coming and giving up at the right moment! Then with another friend we find ourselves attempting to enjoy the woods in the pouring rain. Also ‘guess the leaf’ games; making things for fairies; wayfinding in the countryside and finding a secret place in a tree.
250 – A walk in the woods
Saturday 26 April. Cloudy. 16°C
Spring is well underway and it’s the end of the Easter holidays. We’re ready for a bit of an adventure. B has a playdate planned so I bribe them (“come to the woods first and then you can play all afternoon”). The weather’s better in the afternoon but I think they’ll have more energy in the morning. We went to a little bit of woods near us to make boats the day before and had a lovely time so I’m feeling confident of pushing them into bigger territory further away. I’m aware that while we’ve done a lot of different things this year we’re edging on the cautious side when it comes to days out and proper adventures. I want to start pushing the boat out.
We head to Forest Ffawr. I used to love going there before I had B but the lack of accessible toilets has scuppered us in recent years. Now B’s heading to tweendom I’m confident it will be fine. We’re all positive when we arrive and, on a whim, I suggest that B and K find the way for us. This is a good move. Excited to be leading, they run off ahead and find lots of fun things as they go. There’s ginormous dens to explore and swings attached to trees. Best of all is lots of little paths which they can run up on their own. Helpfully the main path we’re on is the only proper one and heads off without crossroads for a good half an hour.
We come to a stream and a bridge and attempt to play pooh sticks (it’s not really deep enough). There’s a log crossing further down from the bridge and they spend a happy time exploring those. Round the corner we come to a little pond area fed by the stream and they are happy throwing more stones in (to join the already stony bottom) and floating leaves. Then they find their way to a big cave with a fence round that looks like it might have rocks falling from it. They love this most, of course, and run screaming away every time it looks a bit dangerous.
We’ve been walking about forty-five minutes by now and all have been enjoying. I’ve managed to not let them notice they’re actually walking which helps! But now we reach a trouble point. We join the big main path. I half heartedly suggest we go left and look for the place to make dens, which I know is just round the corner. Their energy levels are dropping and I don’t push it. There’s more caves back the other way and I’m hoping to divert them there.
This turns out to be an error. The big path is wide and dull and noticeably less exciting than the bit we were just on. They get bored. By the time we get to the interesting bit they’re tired and ‘just want to go home’. One pair of shoes is rubbing too, which doesn’t help. Afterwards I think if I’d got them to the dens they’d probably have happily played there for half an hour and found more energy to go on but heigh ho. As we head back to the car park we have time for one last diversion. The woods are a mix of wild garlic and English bluebells. We find a wild garlic patch and explore them – working out the leaves smell more than the flowers! I challenge them to make a 250. I’m envisioning the giant one they’d have made at the start of the walk but settle for the little version that comes at the end.
Once home I ponder the antipathy kids can have to ‘walking’. I’m sure some don’t but I certainly did and B is the same. She’ll happily go miles but only so long as she doesn’t notice she’s doing it! As the summer kicks off in earnest I think I need to get a bit more focused on distractions and disguises.
235 – ‘Guess the leaf’ games
Sunday 11 May. Sun and cloud. 21°C
We’re back at the local woods for a Sunday afternoon walk. We had such a good time here a few weeks ago (Making boats and racing them) that it’s been easy to get both B and my mum back again. I challenge B to come up with the days’ challenge and it takes her about thirty seconds.
“I know. We’re going to do a game about leaves. One person picks one and shows it to the other person, who has to describe it for the third person whose not allowed to see it.”
B likes making up games at the moment. It’s a bit complicated but it works well enough. We try different versions as we go. I have an early panic that we just don’t know enough plants to do it but it turns out I’m wrong. There’s loads we don’t know but quite a few easy ones too. We guess wild garlic (“you didn’t say it smelt!”); clover; dock leaves; dandelion leaves; a bit of fern; oak leaves and the heads of grasses. Once we get some confidence it’s a lot of fun. My mum gets B investigating buttercup leaves and then presents that a few guesses later (both enjoy that I’m clueless). After a while we progress to flowers too. I get to show B the ferns unfolding and she finds an amazing red insect on a nettle. We also marvel at the ginormous size of the stinging nettles (we identify those first – just to be safe!). As we’re heading back another red insect decides it likes B’s trousers and we get another close up look.
I’m surprised we haven’t done this before. It was really easy and kept us all occupied for ages. It felt like we’d become proper nature people.
228 – Making things for fairies
Sunday 18 May. Sunny. 20°C
We’re back in the woods again. It’s becoming our joint favourite place for outings. There’s some real joys to returning frequently too. We’re noticing changes. The wild garlic is on it’s way out now and the little stream we played dams with on the first trip has dried up.
We’re here because B had an idea. “I want to make a picnic in the woods from things you find there.”
Me: “So not to eat? But things that look like food?”
B: “Yes.”
Fair enough. We take a real picnic. We eat it and then start thinking about the fake one. Maybe we should have done it the other way round. It’s surprisingly hard to make fake meals… I attempt one with wild garlic and what looks like sheep’s wool. B then makes a teeny green pizza “with cheese” on it (flowers). It’s tiny and we both have the same brainwave.
“Let’s make FAIRY food”.
This is MUCH more fun. We gather flowers and buds and clover to make fairy breakfast. Then I see some fluffy blossom things on the floor and decide to make a fairy bed. B has a better idea: “Let’s make a SPA”.
She gathers ferns and flowers and heads to the stream where we raced boats a few weeks ago. There’s a row of stepping stones and in the corner we build up a ‘jacuzzi for fairies’ filled with flowers and swirling water. In a corner on the bank we put the bed – for when they want to rest. A couple of dragonflies fly over while we do it and add to the feeling of magic. We’re definitely going to go back to this again. It feels like we’ve only scraped the surface of ideas.
185 – Wayfinding in the countryside
Sunday 29 June. Sunny. 24°C
We’re back at the local woods but this time we have our eyes on the horizon. I am DETERMINED to find the wider loop walk which we’ve been told about. We backed into it a bit last time but we’re ready to try properly. I’ve got B onside by telling her she has to find it. We haven’t done a wayfinding challenge for a while and it’s always a good way to get her interested.
We set off and B needs a bit of help knowing exactly where she’s meant to break off from the usual route. She tries a bit early and then misses it but we find a path in the end and head off, B firmly in the lead. At the end of it, we are directed right by a helpful family, ignore a lovely stream in the focus on making the right choices and finally find ourselves crossing a field full of cowpats. I think this is right but B is not impressed. We also bump into some horse flies and I warn her to check for tics… which probably wasn’t a good idea. She’s gone into ‘countryside is yucky’ mode.
Keen to move on from the long grass and cow pats I suggest we try a bridge on the other side of the meadow. This leads us into more woods, uneven ground and finally we find the end of the path we backed into last time. B is enjoying herself MUCH more now. Grandma is less happy – the ground is not easy to negotiate.
As we saunter on confidently through the final familiar bit we realise we’ve got more wayfinding to do. We’re pretty sure there’s a road way round which avoids the cowpats…
150 – Writing in the moss on tree trunks…
Monday 4 August. Wet. 22°C
It’s very very rainy. We have friends staying and we’re eager to do a nature challenge… but we’re definitely going to battle the weather. We head out to Forest Fawr woods again, thinking that if it’s bad we can always head to Castell Coch for some shelter. We had an idea for a ‘find the castle’ walking challenge but we’re not going to last that long. I wonder if we can do ‘testing if it’s dry under the trees’… Answer: it’s a tad better but not much.
We dive straight into a part of the wood where there are dens and sticks and lots of trees and the girls are intrigued. There’s some beautiful dens that have been left behind and they offer good shelter. We wonder if we can make one but it’s too wet to feel enthusiasm. Then F sees the moss on some of the fallen branches. “Can we write in that?”
Great idea. “What can we do it with?”
Everyone: “STICKS!”
We try out a few. The little pretty delicate ones with pointy ends turn out to be too fragile for moss. We go for thicker ones. You have to really scrape to get a bit off. We give up on one branch and find a better tree trunk with a thinner layer. With a bit of persistence F makes a 150 we can just about see. It might need a bit of work to get it into a proper woodland activity but it’s definitely fun. It makes us look at the trees too.
123 – Finding a secret place in a tree
Thursday 28 August. Rainy. 20°C
Not just one for woods this but anywhere where you might find a large, accessible conifer. We find this one at Manor Wildlife Park. Its massive and B and I move the branches around to see if we can see inside it. WE CAN! It’s very cool – a whole secret world. She goes one way round and I go the other to see if there’s a way in.
B gets there first. There’s a gap in the side and she’s in, twinging branches back as a defence system against invaders. I find a smaller hole and wiggle through. It’s like our own private tree room. I wish we’d brought a picnic.
