Great Food Festival and Gala

Space to explore

Becky Blanco, Steve Blanco and Emily Cutts

The Little House of La performing

Participating with and watching the performance

The Little House of La

Jessica Gladys Wolfson performs with The Little House of La and the audience become apes.

Merlin the hamster.

Trees to climb and knitted fruit and veg

Anna Fisk of Knit Wild

Crochet inspired by nature

Shiona McCubbin with her beautiful hand stitched crafts

The Green Party table

This summer has been a chilly one in Scotland with plenty of rain, which of course the grass, trees and most of the plants love. I don't mind showers but the temperature feels far too cold for the end of June!

Fortunately, the sun broke through the clouds for another successful free event at the Children's Wood and Meadow on 7th June. Visiting for a few hours in the afternoon, I captured a very small part of a whole day of fun activities; all organised and delivered by local community volunteers. I arrived just as the annual dog show was finishing which is very popular with the many people who regularly walk their dogs on the meadow. McDonald Vets supported this event with categories such as 'Best Trick for a Biscuit', 'Children's Favourite' and 'Waggiest Tail'. One little girl even brought her hamster for a walk who wore a homemade ribbon holster and yarn lead. He seemed quite happy sniffing about in the grass in the fresh air.

There were lots of stalls with local crafts, balloon animals, home baking, face painting, The Green Party, Maryhill Foodbank, and more. Knit Wild had their beautiful knitted and crocheted flowers, leaves, birds, fruit and veg on display with a very friendly knitter helping the children and others to have a go themselves. Many of these items can now be found decorating the woods and meadows. There was a 'Grow Your Own' and Composting workshop and a come dressed as your favourite fruit or veg fancy dress competition!

A great hit with the children were the band The Little House of La. They had the little ones hopping like bunnies, unraveling a paper doll chain and pretending to be Apemen. The Barrow Band were also lots of fun and were enjoyed by everyone.

There was a stall with information about the Council's plans to build on the meadow, with forms so that we could give our reasons for wanting the meadow and woods protected now and for future generations and how we have benefited from this special space. Recently The Children's Wood Committee have been working with an architect on a planning application of their own which would see the area developed further for community based events, recreation, education and as an organic growing space. In spite of the Scottish Government's support of outdoor learning it is still woefully inadequate in many schools, especially inner city ones. Supporters of the Children's Wood and Meadow have been doing a great job demonstrating the benefits of outdoor education with their regular classes and events. This involves training and specific knowledge and skills. It is not the same as letting kids run wild in nature, though of course that is very much encouraged too.

I love how much thought and creativity goes into the Children's Wood and Meadow themed events and appreciate all the time this takes. They are always very unique, so much fun and enable everyone to participate in building a healthy, inclusive, environmentally friendly place to live.

The Children's Wood.

North Kelvin Meadow.
Knit Wild.

Previous blog posts:
 The Worm Carnival.
The Dear Green Place.

'Tis the Season to Get Crafty

Ronnie's rustic wreath with sparkly red Acer leaves.

Practicing weaving the coloured dogwood stems.

Dogwood wreath bases and some Christmas cards made by foot and mouth painters. 

Trimming the dogwood stems.

Preparing materials for making wreaths in our outdoor classroom.

Woodlands Community Garden and Jimmy's rustic wreath with dried oregano flowers. 

Shaun's variegated and plain ivy rustic wreath. 

Ronnie proudly showing two of the finished wreaths.

Bringing evergreens into the home is a very old winter time tradition. The ancient Celts placed evergreen boughs over their doors and windows to ward off evil spirits. The Celtic wood priests, the Druids, used evergreens, holly and mistletoe as symbols of everlasting life during mysterious winter solstice rituals. Ancient people believed that evergreen trees and plants had magical powers that meant they could withstand the cold of winter. Pagans also placed evergreens in their homes but believed that cutting down whole evergreen trees was destructive to nature. The tradition of bringing a fir tree indoors to decorate comes from 16th century Germany. It is said that Martin Luther, A German theologian, was the first person to decorate a tree to celebrate Christmas. One chilly Christmas Eve he was out walking in the woods writing a sermon when he was struck by the beauty of a group of small evergreens sparkling in the snow under the stars. He wanted to share this with his children so he brought one into his home and decorated it with candles which he lit in honour of Christ's birth.

I love to be outdoors but the shorter, colder days of the winter months mean there is more time to work on craft activities and it's always fun to do with friends or with your children. It is lots of fun wrapping up warm and going on a hunt for natural materials to work with. There are many enjoyable Christmas crafts that cost very little to make that you can give away as presents or keep for yourself. The Common Knowledge Grow 2 group have been learning about rustic wreath making so that they can share what they've learned with their peers. We used willow and dogwood stems for the base of our wreaths because they are very bendy and are really easy to make into a circle.

Dogwood is often grown for winter colour in the garden because of it's beautiful bright red, burgundy and lime yellow stems. Only the one year old stems have the bright colours so shrubs should be cut a few inches from the ground every year to encourage new growth. They are very tough and hardy and are planted in many public places where they grow into large shrubs. I noticed the council had trimmed back a large patch of dogwood shrubs near my flat a few weeks ago, so all I had to do was collect the cuttings from the ground. Instant, free crafting material thanks to the council!

We used florist's wire to attach sprigs of evergreens such as holly, ivy and fir. I had already prepared the red Acer leaves by painting one side with some watered down PVA glue with bronze glitter added, leaving them to dry overnight, then doing the same with the other side. Acer is a deciduous tree species whose leaves turn beautiful colours in Autumn before they fall off. They don't last as well as evergreens so the PVA helps to stop them drying out and losing their colour. We cut the dried oregano flowers from a bush in the garden - which is a good reason not to be too hasty with tidying up dried stems! Red raffia and garden twine were used to makes bows and to make a loop at the back for hanging up which adds to the rustic charm.

Common Knowledge Grows 2 will have a stall at the Southbrae Winter Fayre in Jordanhill G13 1TX on Friday 12th December 10am - 4pm. We will be selling wreaths and other handmade crafts and goods. It looks like a great event: you can watch a video about it HERE.

Oh and if you are ordering any Christmas gifts on line you can raise money for CKUK or over 55,000 other good causes and it does't cost you a single penny extra when you register with  easyfundraising.org.uk You can shop with over 2,700 well known retailers like Argos, M&S, eBay and Amazon. Whenever you buy something on line the retailer makes a donation to your chosen good cause!

The Worm Carnival

What do you do when 95% of the local community surveyed don't want a green space built on but the council have already decided to put new housing there? You start a campaign. That is just what Douglas Peacock did back in 2008. A massive clean up job was started with around 30 volunteers removing over 60 bags of rubbish, broken glass, needles, old sofas etc. It's hard to imagine all these years later because the Children's Wood and Meadow is one of the most stunning wild places to visit in the city of Glasgow. Along with other community created green spaces such as the Woodlands Community Garden it is a place we regularly visit for fun activities and for my son to play, relax and learn about nature.

We moved back to Glasgow last August and I now get really excited about the West End Festival events that are held here because they are so much fun! Last weekend we cycled to the Worm Carnival. I always make a bee line for the healthy barbecue food, then it's straight to the cake table. I don't eat cakes very often and I don't have time to bake so it's a treat to sample some of the delicious delights created by local children and adults for the baking competition. I've never had rhubarb meringue tart before. It was amazing. James Morton who was the runner up in The Great British Bake Off t.v. show came along to judge the entries: lucky guy!

We watched award winning Eco Drama Company perform "The Worm - An Underground Adventure" which was very funny. There was an up-cycling bird box activity, face painting and a pop up cafe run by Garrioch Roots. My son and I did a nature hunt together. We had a list of items we had to find around the meadow such as 6 different kinds of leaves. In one overgrown area of long grasses there are some barrel raised beds full of summer herbs, veg and a few weeds. It is the sort of area you don't see in parks because it looks 'messy'. But I couldn't see a single pest anywhere, everything was incredibly healthy and strong. This is an example of a balanced eco system where predator and pest are in equal amounts therefore no harmful chemicals need to be sprayed. The bees and butterflies, whose numbers are reducing at a shocking rate, were loving the large patch of clover. We saw lots of red-tailed bumble bees: Bombus lapidarius along with the better know yellow striped bumble bee: Bombus hortorum. We really enjoyed doing the nature hunt and it meant we had a tour around the whole site and were able to see so many amazing things in each of the different areas as well as stopping to chat to people, "isn't it great how you meet so many people when you come here" said a new friend.

It can cost a fortune finding entertainment for children and with the ongoing austerity and economic downturn having an affect on us all, this event and the many others you can attend here for free keep families happy with no cost to the council.  The local schools are now benefitting by having a space to grow vegetables and take part in outdoor learning activities, which the Scottish Government has been promoting for some time. This has been and continues to be an excellently run campaign; thank you to everyone involved. It is the love and commitment of the local community and everyone who visits that makes the Children's Wood and Meadow a unique and special place in the city. That is worth preserving.

Support the North Kelvin Meadow Campaign!
A lovely blog about Urban Pollinators

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

This Halloween I joined some zombies, witches, clowns and various other fantastic characters at my son's school to help with an afternoon of outdoor learning. A lady from the Woodlands Community Garden came along with some materials to make a start on creating some growing areas. She brought pallets and plastic bottles which will become vertical planters. After a brief explanation of what they were to do and warnings about splinters and nails in the pallets the children were split up into four groups of eight.

One group prepared the plastic bottles, one group sanded and painted pallets, one group played nature bingo with another parent helper and the final group came into the garden with me to play a bird identification game. Laminated pictures of birds had been hung around the school gardens with the name of the bird written underneath and each child was given a photocopied sheet of all the images. They had to find the corresponding bird image and write the name on their sheet. There were a couple of light rain showers but the children didn't mind, they were too busy dashing around in all directions having a great time. When they had found all the cards we met up and had a chat about native British birds which are now endangered such as the cuckoo and nightingale and what we can do to help birds through the winter months. The children were so excited to tell me all sorts of weird and wonderful bird related tales. 

In Scotland the school system already favours outdoor learning and in Glasgow there are many local organisations with qualified garden support workers, rangers and nature volunteers to help schools with their projects. At my son's previous school in England I was single handedly introducing outdoor learning activities and hoped that some of the teachers would take an interest. The head was really keen to develop this side of education but without local education support there was no need to do it and it would have been a big effort for teachers to try and include it in their already hectic timetables. So I worked with a few children at a time who were allowed to come out of class, did some lunchtime sessions and generally looked after the gardens. I applied for £10,000 lottery funding to develop some woodland in the grounds and to fund garden activities and was delighted to hear the school had been awarded the money. It should help considerably.

I was sad to leave behind the children in Hastings and all the work I had started so it's been great to start helping at my son's new school in Glasgow. It was a nice change to have everything already prepared for me and I look forward to seeing the ongoing projects develop and the children learn new skills. It's great to work in a team. My son brought his first friend home after school, a Portuguese boy who also started in August and who had no English at all. We did a fun craft activity making leaf monsters. I had pressed some autumn leaves I'd collected between tissue in a big heavy book and they stuck them down then added monster faces, arms and other decorations. I hope you had a fun Halloween too.