One word? When seven would do…

I had a really bad night awake loads with my cough again and poor Ady was disturbed by it too. When his alarm went off at 6am I felt like I’d hardly had any sleep. He brought me up a cup of tea which is the surefire way usually of getting me back to sleep again (not in drinking it you understand, in falling asleep so it goes cold sitting there untouched) and it worked it’s usual magic.

Tarly came and got into bed with me just before my alarm went off and we laid there dozily chatting until we got up. Davies got up too and we had a quick eat breakfast /get dressed / get out of the house turnaround which is so not something we are much good at.

I knew where the park was as we have been to it loads of times for Springwatch and the kite festival but we’ve only ever parked at the university (it’s within the same grounds as Sussex uni) so I wasn’t sure how to get into the park and where the carpark was where we were meeting. I did work it out and we were there well on time though.

I have to confess that I had been having reservations about the other families I knew were attending as I have experienced some of the children being quite disruptive at other events and indeed several of the families were ones I knew from Magical Mondays and whilst I quite liked the parents differing opinions on what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour had been instrumental in us not going there any more.So I was a bit nervous about how they would be towards me, how their kids would be generally and what the dynamic would be between the children. I was also very concerned that I was parting with £150 in a carpark for a bit of an unknown quantity and I didn’t want it ruined at the hands of someone else. Davies, Scarlett and I had had a chat beforehand about what I wanted them to get out of it: fun, learn something, enjoy it, stick together, be respectful of others and the rangers leading it which is kind of all I ever expect from them anywhere really I guess.

I was probably right to fret slightly about the other kids, there was an element of the rowdy ones distracting the group and the rangers were all rather peaceful folk who weren’t great at pulling everyone’s attention back. I have to admit that Scarlett was often to be heard wanting to chat to the rangers (like she did at the Wildlife Centre) rather than let them talk though. I have talked to her about it. I also think that although one of them was my own child the inclusion of the younger ones (it had originally been an 8-10 year olds session but a lack of take up meant they extended it both ways so there were a couple of littler ones including Tarly and a couple of older ones too) meant they were needing to appeal to a broader range of abilities and possibly took something away from what the older ones could have been doing without the younger ones there.

So we all gathered and walked up an incredibly steep hill and along into the woods. A campfire was lit and the children all sat round it on logs. This imediately marked the kids into several distinct groups – the ones who were used to such things and loved it, the ones who were coughing and waving the smoke away in a dramatic fashion and probably didnt really want to sit down on the logs incase there were bugs on them and the ones who saw fire and got an pyromaniacal gleam in their eyes! 😆

They all had to introduce themselves and also to include a descriptive and alliterative word infront of their names. Davies was ‘dynamic Davies’ just as he’d been for the Salmon’s superheros party last year. Scarlett said she couldn’t think of one and was a bit shy but was bolstered with ‘Super Scarlett’ :). They handed round various fire making things including flint and iron pyrite and then watched some hay caught alight with some char-cloth (burnt cloth) and a firesteel spark maker. They were then split into 3 teams and all had a go at making fire.

Davies and Scarlett were in seperate teams and both ended up last to have a go which meant I was hopping from one to the other to make sure I didn’t miss it. In the end Scarlett did hers far quicker than Davies. The ranger may have been just being kind but she did keep saying to Davies that he was making good sparks and she didn’t know why it wasn’t taking. She offered to do it for him but he was adamant he wanted to do it himself and he did in the end.

Both kids want a now! 😆

They deemed that thirsty work and made hot chocolate from the boiling kettle over the fire, then toasted some bread over the fire and spread it with butter using a very cool butter knife made from a stick.

There was a rather too long pause for everyone to eat and drink which I thought a shame they didn’t fill with some ‘ranger talk’ of some sort. Next they drew a pattern on everyone’s hand which they had to go off into the woods and find recreated in nature. I thought this was quite good but possibly a bit of a timefiller / bonding exercise for the children. Most of them found it quite quickly and then seemed to wander about a bit aimlessly for a while.

Scarlett was very happy as there were two dogs there to play with so she was in her element. Davies came over to me with a stick so I sent him over to the ranger to ask about it and he came back to tell me it was ash. He also chatted to the rangers about the butter knife and one of them had a very cool wooden mug too.

They came back to the circle and were given a postcard with a strip of double sided tape down the middle to fix various forest bits to. Scarlett found acorns and a snail shell, Davies found a feather, some small leaves, twigs and flowers. All very pretty but again not much in the way of engagement from the rangers about things like identifying what they’d found.

They were gathered back together round the fire again for a story by one of the rangers and then finished with some games – hide and seek type stuff I think.

For me I thought it was a lot of sitting around, quite a bit of just running around the woods which is great but needn’t cost any money and the kids didn’t get as much out of being with the rangers as I’d have hoped (kids generally, not specifically Davies and Scarlett as they both chatted to the rangers quite a bit but that was them actively seeking them out rather than being enaged by them).

However I need to move away from my personal perception of value for money and think about what the children wanted / needed to get out of it and they both loved every minute of it. They said later than it has been their favourite activity so far and given how much they love Wildlife Explorers, Badgers, Rainbows, Magic Lantern, Young Archaeologists etc. that is praise indeed so from their point of view it was a huge success. I know when Tarly started Rainbows I had this whole other agenda to her about what I thought she should get out of it which didn’t mean a thing compared to what she wanted to get out of it. I also think they are both quite highly skilled at getting what they want from things anyway so i should trust their judgement a bit more and if they tell me it’s great I should believe them really. 🙂

We left there with them bubbling over with enthusiasm, they even rang Ady to tell him how fab it was, and popped into Asda for some bits for lunch and dinner. They wanted to look at the toys and as they have £10 each from Lynda still they chose something each to spend their money on. Davies found one of the Ben 10 characters he doesn’t have and Scarlett got some jungle in my pocket tat. I was pleased that they both chose to spend some of the money on one thing and keep some back still.

When we got to the till I felt in my pocket and realised my card wasn’t there. We left the basket and went back to the car although I was sure I remembered taking it out of my purse. Sure enough it wasn’t in my purse so I left the kids in the car and ran back to ask at the customer service desk if anyone had handed it in. I retraced my steps round the store and to the loo and started to wonder if the woman who’d bumped into me down one of the aisles had been an expert pickpocket. I had enough cash to pay for our stuff and when I got back to the car all harrassed I found the card under the seat so I had taken it out of the purse but not managed to actually put it in my pocket. Phew. Did mean the children got to learn about pickpockets though, so every cloud and all that! 😆

We had just over an hour at home and Davies got out his Ben 10 stuff and played with them and Scarlett introduced the jungle in my pocket characters to Humphrey the air drying clay hamster with his fabulous home from yesterday.

Back out again to swimming lessons. It is my intention to swim myself most weeks but this week I wanted to watch the lesson and check that my fussing about Tarly being moved up had been warranted and that she was okay in the new class. She was and she did really well. By accident they were both ‘dolphins’ so swam across together and I noticed them both aware of ‘racing’ the other one which spurred them both on. Nice healthy competition 🙂 It’s not often they are evenly matched in things as they have such different strengths usually and what Davies has in experience Scarlett has in stamina and determation so for short bursts at least they are well paced.

One of the swimming mums was in a chatty mood which was nice but I was coughing lots so that was hard work. Ady had rung to say he was home and had the kids’ dinner on so they showered and hairwashed at the pool to save needing a bath at home.

They were both full of Forest School chatter to Ady and then Tarly went to bed to play with some toys (Betty Spagetty I think) and Davies and I read as in he picked it up and read the first page and then I took over. Loving his new confidence to try reading 🙂

I have some Covonia at Mich’s recommendation which I have been swigging from the bottle Joyce-stylee and am hoping for a peaceful night as tomorrow is another early start.