Escaping To The Trees
I've now got us into the habit that we have to get out and about into 'nature' several times a week, or I begin to feel contained and imprisoned. It's so easy to settle into domesticity and confine yourself to the house, but I always feel better for getting out and exploring the wonderful world we live in.
Several weekends ago we spent the Saturday doing the 'chilling out' in the house thing, and then had to go to a new classmate's birthday party. By the time we came out of the party, I felt like climbing the nearest tree myself; I felt really trapped by all the bricks and windows etc! We headed over to Victoria Park in Cardiff to find conkers and wander amongst the trees, where we discovered the most plentiful conker tree I've ever seen at the top of which sat a squirrel systematically stripping the conkers from their shells, nibbling the casings off, and then throwing the discarded conkers down. Luckily The Boy still had his helmet on as quite a few were bouncing off our heads!
En route home, I texted my brother (not the one who's buggered off to Australia, the eldest one) and arranged to go to Cefn Onn the following day. My sister-in-law works in the great outdoors professionally, and their daughter (Fiery Cousin) is a 'wild child' just like The Boy so it's good to get together and let the children be 'feral', just as they should be, while we catch up.
As soon as we arrived at Cefn Onn (one of Cardiff's best kept secrets), The Boy and Fiery Cousin were off! Trees were no obstacle to them, and scooters were soon abandoned in favour of walking up the hillside through the stream. And yes, they both had canvas shoes on. And yes, we let them.
We'd been to Cefn Onn in the Spring when the rhododendrons were in full bloom, and I was desperate to come back and see the colours on the leaves. We were a little early this time, but we did explore up further than the lake this time, where we came across the part-built Summerhouse for the original owner's son. The whole park was originally created as a recuperation location for his son who was suffering from tuberculosis, unfortunately he died before the Summerhouse could be finished, it stands forlorn at the top of the park.
It's a wonderous area to explore, play hide and seek, and stop for a snack! I love how my niece is working the camera, The Boy is sporting his fake smile.
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I'm linking this up to Country Kids and Flashback Friday.
This post is also an entry for BritMums ‘Little Adventures Challenge’ in partnership with Barny, the bear-shaped snack providing a little discovery in every bite. Find out more about Barny here.
The Woodland Trust & Yeo Valley
Ever since the first time I visited the Yeo Valley farm overlooking Blagdon Lake last Summer, I have had a fondness for the dairy company which has seen my shopping tendencies change. Gone are the Onken yoghurts, gone is the cheap milk for £1 and blocks of butter produced by a company which doesn't pay British dairy farmers a fair price. In has come Yeo Valley. It's not only a company which I'm proud to associate my blog with, but a range of products which I'd rather have in my fridge and our tummies. And ultimately, on my conscience.
As an ethical company, Yeo Valley have teamed up with The Woodland Trust to plant 10,000 trees and help preserve Britain’s wonderful woodland. On the underside lid of the special packs of Yeo Valley (marked with the Woodland Trust campaign) is a code which when entered onto the Yeo Valley & Woodland Trust page could result in one of 10,000 trees being won, either to plant in your own garden or donated to The Woodland Trust.
However, their partnership goes much further than that, and that's why a bunch of parent bloggers (including us) were invited to a Woodland Trust day at the Yeo Valley headquarters to meet with the people behind the campaign, and introduce our children to learning about their world via forest exploration and play.
We were welcomed to the Mendips by the larger than life Les, the head ranger at Yeo Valley, who explained to the children all about the different rocks that make up the strata of the hills. Introduced to the forested area by the Woodland Trust, we were invited to complete a leaf trail and a bug hunt which the children were completely engaged in. I was very surprised just how interested The Boy was in the different leaves around, and we quickly identified about ten different trees and bushes in a very small section of wood. Enlisting the help of the kind lady behind the Nature Detectives (the children's Woodland Trust club), he was able to find several different minibeasts as well.
After a luscious lunch prepared by the chefs at the Yeo Valley kitchen, we were revived enough to create dens for woodland creatures (or tiny aliens as Les told the children), and then produce a truly wonderful wizard's wand using detritus from the forest floor.
The wonderful sheets we used are available to download for free from the Nature Detectives website here. They are great generic sheets, and I would really recommend downloading them and using them during the forthcoming Autumn months.
The Woodland Trust have a club for young explorers called the Nature Detectives Club, which has a wealth of resources and challenges available for children. Membership is as little as £12 for one child for a year, as little as 25p a week.
We received a goody bag of Yeo Valley yoghurts to try out, marked with The Woodland trust campaign (and we've entered in our codes and donated trees) and a selection of the wonderful wildlife identification swatch books available to buy from The Woodland Trust directly. The Boy finds these fascinating, in particular the leaf book; it was his bedtime reading for a week after our trip to the farm!
We were invited as guests to the Yeo Valley farm to help promote their campaign with The Woodland Trust, and received the above items free of charge.
Days 195-201 of Project 365
195. Edible (On the way down to Burton's birthday party, we stopped off at Tyntesfield National Trust site to wander around. Unfortunately it was the hottest day of the year and so we did little more than sit under a tree and have a very edible picnic.)
196. Outside The Window (Such a boring photo to everyone else… this window has been broken for a month, and during this hot weather it has been a nightmare as it is perfectly positioned to catch and direct an amazing breeze through the downstairs rooms. We couldn't find our guarantee so bit the bullet and phoned up the double glazing company, expecting to need a new window: £15 for a new handle was all the damage! And outside the window is my son's play-haven.)
197. Bottle (We met up with friends of ours at our local nature reserve. Despite having lived in Cardiff for twenty years until university, she'd never actually been there and so we were happy to show them how to feed the swans, where the squirrels can be found, the best trees for climbing and the wonderful play park. My friend adored it, and both of the children loved it when I produced some clay from my bag ready for a very special craft activity! I was amazed to see The Boy climb all the way up this tree, completely unaided; he's got a lot of bottle nowadays when it comes to tree climbing!)
198. Inspirational (A fairly contrived photo of the prompt, but this boy of mine is inspirational to me to try my hardest to provide stimulating play opportunities and be the best mummy I can.)
199. Number (I know it's Summer and therefore we should be used to the fact that it should be hot, but I've never seen it this hot in The Boy's bedroom at night; a ridiculous number. No rain in weeks, and it's so sticky and muggy that we do actually need a thunderstorm.)
200. Building (Last day of term! When I finally arrived home from work, we settled down with coloured pencils, building his 'to-do' list for the Summer.)
201. Hot (As it was the town's annual carnival, we went down to see what was going on down the beach. The answer was not very much indeed, apart from a downhill derby, so we ended up 'plopping' pebbles into the sea to cool us down as we were hot and bothered. After we treated ourselves to pizza, chips, onion rings, doughnuts and candy floss, and needed winching back up the hill!)
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