Debrief, seed bomb, game pie

I worked this morning, just for 3 hours which went very quickly. I did the banking first thing and then had a 90 minute debrief of Chatterbooks session with Cara (Childrens Librarian) and Russell (Childrens Services Senior Librarian). They had various questions which I rather pre-empted by presenting them both with a report on the whole Chatterbooks experience with stats about attendance, feedback from children and parents, a summary of each session, improvement opportunities and suggestions for the future. It was an interesting discussion though, I got all the points I wanted to make across, was bigged up for what I had done and taken very seriously. I was then asked if I’d consider doing it again for the 10 children on the waiting list if I was completely supported and had a third person to totally take over the refreshments etc.

I had said I wouldn’t do it again unless they paid me but I got swept up ;). Although they have emailed Brenda (big boss) to ask if I can get paid at least for the hour a week I do the sessions so we’ll wait and see what happens. I do have a bit of a conscience about that waiting list of names that were taken with the promise of another session running though and as all the actual prep and planning work is already done I would be prepared to run it again for that group, learn more from working with different children and of course be better supported anyway.

I can’t deny it felt nice to be in a proper meeting talking about higher level stuff than just issuing books even if I had to volunteer to get there. I have missed that element to working given the responsibilities I had in previous jobs before children.

I came down with only an hour before I was going home during which I was on the Enquiry Desk. I greeted several regular borrowers, worked through a list of books one wanted to borrow, chatted to a couple of the Story Time Mums and had a little audience of 5 of the storytime children who came out of Storytime, saw me on the desk and came to chat to me there. For someone who really, truly, genuinely doesn’t like children I do seem to spend an awful lot of time in their company…

I came home and Dad who had been here for the morning headed off as he was keen to make the most of the sunshine and do some work this afternoon. He and the children had had a nice morning together watching a film, playing with the lego and just chatting. They are getting so much out of each others company at the moment 🙂

I made lunch, shaped some hot cross buns to prove while we were out and then we headed out to Hove for a Seed Bomb Workshop. We’d been supposed to attend one a while back but a rainy day and a refusing to start car put paid to that, thankfully I was able to get us on another workshop for today.

The workshops are being run by Harvest which is an initiative in Brighton and Hove to get people growing and eating local food. I know we don’t strictly live in Brighton but we are close enough to be considered local and I love the ethos and ideas. I’d not heard of seedbombs before but they even sound fascinating so I was keen to learn more and the very best way to learn is to do. So along we went!

We arrived with time to spare, found a parking space right outside the door and then I realised we’d not stopped to get cash out to pay for the workshops so I left Davies and Scarlett in the car and dashed to what I was expecting to be a very nearby cashpoint. It turned out to be rather further away and I felt rather Anneka Rice-esque dashing along the street. I bumped into Liza and Andrew who helped to direct me to a cashpoint, I waited behind a bloke who seemed to take forever and then dashed back to the car again, even nipping under a ladder in my haste. I paid for parking and in we went.

The workshop was being run by Josie from seed freedom who introduced herself, explained what a seed bomb is and talked about guerilla gardening. There was Davies, Scarlett and I, and four other women there so it was a pretty small workshop. There was a quiz to get us going, matching up the seeds to the flowers which Davies and Scarlett had some directional help with but pretty much did on their own.

Then it was onto the actual seed bomb making. For those who have not clicked the links a seed bomb is a little ‘bomb’ of compost and clay containing seeds. They remain in suspended animation within the little ball until activated by water at which point the seeds are already enclosed in all they need to germinate and start growing. They are used for lobbing into wasteland, roundabouts or other graffiti style gardening or are an efficient way to sow seeds for various reasons (if you’re interested in that then click the link, Josie explains it far better than me ;)).

Scarlett had been initially fretful that she might not want to talk to ‘strangers’ to which Davies and I tried to tell her ‘there are no strangers, just friends you haven’t met yet’ but actually she didn’t stop talking for pretty much the whole time :). We mixed 9 scoops of a compost and clay mix with one small scoop of seeds, added water and shaped balls to create seed bombs. They need to dry out and are then ready to store, carry round ready for a guerilla gardening opportunity or reactivate at the right time.

Scarlett and Davies very quickly got creative when realising actually balls were not the only possibility and made bees for their bee mix of flowers along with hearts and stars. Davies then went really creative for his basil mix and made a fox, a brush, a pizza and some letter Bs. I made bombs for my bee mix and stars for my edible salad leaf mix. It was very enjoyable and quite theraputic.

Scarlett nattered away to everyone and when Josie suggested the children keep a seed bomb diary as part of their Easter holiday homework they told her they don’t go to school as they are Home Educated, explained a bit about how we do it and were then most impressed to learn that Josie herself was Home Educated. Her parents are / were travellers so she grew up in Wales, moving around and said she learnt about chopping wood, self sufficiency and spent a lot of time looking after her younger siblings. She has 3 boys of her own who go to school but did say if she’d stayed in Wales maybe she would have HE’d them.

Once everyone had made two sets of seedbombs we packaged them all up to bring home to dry and the seed matching results were announced with Davies and Scarlett both winning 🙂 Their prize was a seedbomb making kit each which they were most chuffed with and are looking forward to sharing with Ady so he can learn about it too.

As we left Josie wished us luck with our HE journey and said she had gone to uni and got her degree with no previous schooling and no GCSEs. Really cool to meet living proof of HE producing such a sorted person who makes her living doing something she is really passionate about, believes in and truly loves :).

We came home via Sainsburys for various Easter related supplies. Davies and Scarlett went off to play with the lego while I finished the hot cross buns and made game pie. Ady had found some game mix on offer at Sainsbury reduced from £5 to 99p last night – a mix of venison, rabbit, partridge, pigeon, pheasant and duck. So I cooked that up, made some rough puff pastry , reduced the stock to make gravy and constucted a very delicious (if I do say so myself) pie. Davies and Scarlett had an ecclectic mix of soup, baked beans, bacon and bread and butter at their own request, followed by yoghurt and honey and banana.

I read some Humphrey, Ady took over the rest of the dinner (he did saute potatoes, sweetcorn and gravy) while I had a bath and sorted out his laptop which is playing up.

Dinner was late, I’m worn out and should really be in bed as tomorrow is another busy day :).