Tag: nature

Parklife

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Our park has become a Queen Elizabeth II (QEII) Field.

I say our park. Edgar’s Field is a public park but it feels like our front garden.

It’s the place that offers sanctuary on dark days, tantalising brushes with nature as the seasons change and endless hours of playground fun for the girls as they clamber over the pirate ship and soar skywards on the swings.

It feels like home.

Last week a shiny, silver plaque was attached to the railings outside.

The park has been granted QEII Field status, an award from the Fields In Trust organisation, following nomination by the local community.

It basically means the park has greater protection. If you want to build on it now, you now have to answer to her Maj.

I’ve written about the importance of our park before. Twitter stalwart Outdoors With Dad often posts parklife ideas around Edgar’s Field. And blogger Mark Charlton has also spoken up for his local park in his blog, View from the Bike Shed.

We take our parks for granted. But we shouldn’t.

Parks form part of the fabric of life that makes us feel secure.

I still remember the park I played in as a child, the rocking motion of the horse-shaped seesaw.

Maya and Olivia may not realise it now but the innocent moments, playing in our front-garden park, may prove to be some of their most comforting childhood memories.

They will never know more freedom than reaching for the sky on the swings on a crisp autumn morning.

We’re lucky. Our park’s future looks safe and, buoyed by its new-found status, the local community group is now aiming higher.

It is looking to establish a lookout on the park’s Weathervane Hill to take in the twin-bridge views of the Grosvenor and Old Dee bridges, plus to soak up the nature thriving amongst the lime trees.

Love your park.

We do.

Gazetteer

Friends of Edgar’s Fields

Fields in Trust

View from the Bike Shed: In Praise of Parks and their Keepers

Outdoors with Dad

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Story of the week: National Tree Week in Cumbria

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* As National Tree Week gets under, here’s a more recent piece about appreciating our forests and natural landscape. Follow me on Twitter, or subscribe to the RSS, for more update.

My two little girls read about forests in their storybooks.

We go walking and play at Goldilocks. But we’re not exactly living off grid in urban Chester and, while we enjoy days out in the forest, we know little about the woodland ecosystem. Let’s just say that Bear Grylls is not exactly watching his back for the Atkinson clan yet.

That’s why, with school holidays kicking in, Maya (seven), Olivia (three) [pictured above in Cumbria with my dad] and I have come to Whinlatter Forest, a Forestry Commission site in the Lake District with healthy communities of Red squirrels, Roe deer and nesting ospreys, for a back-to-nature weekend of forest trails, Lakeland views and heaps of fresh air.

Whinlatter, England’s only mountain forest, opened a group of family-friendly trails a few years ago to introduce children to basic navigational skills, learn about the forest and interact with nature.

Adventure trail

By looking for clues or collecting answers along the trails, it encourages even very young children to interact with the forest and find their own way from one interpretation panel to another.

On a sunny day in July, we opt for the Squirrel Scurry Trail, a moderate, one-mile hike around eight interpretation points. The girls have to read the panels and answer questions along the way, writing their answers on the trail map to win a squirrel badge.

It’s a trail suitable for easily tired toddler legs and also accessible by buggy.

Adrian Jones, Recreation Manager at Whinlatter, meets us at the Visitor Centre for a crash course in map reading and compass points. “I feel free in the forest,” says Adrian, leading us towards trailhead marker of a carved red squirrel.

“I first started going to the woods with my father and grandfather as a boy,” he adds. “That’s how I became hooked.”

As we delve into the deep, dark coniferous forest, Olivia decides we’re going on a beer hunt. After all, we are walking through a shaded woodland glade straight out of a story by Anthony Browne or Michael Rosen.

“We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it,” she sings. “We’ve got to go through it.”

Maya, meanwhile, is taking charge of directions, folding out the map and scouring the horizon for waymarking posts as we head north. “This way,” she says, “Follow me.”

The woodland copse feels deliciously cool away from the mid-afternoon sunglare and we savour the sensory forest feast with pine combs crunching under foot, birdlife in the trees and wafts of wild flowers drifting by tantalisingly on the summer breeze.

As we climb towards panel three, a viewpoint known as The Comb, the full widescreen panorama opens out before us. From our vantage point some 1,000ft above sea level, we gaze out across Keswick and Derwentwater below, and Helvellyn to the south.

Fact finding

Maya locates the panel and makes light work of the questions while Olivia busies herself collecting daisies and buttercups from beside the scrunchy, gravelly trail. By the time we move on, we’ve all learnt that grey squirrels were brought to England from America in the 1870s and baby squirrels are called kittens.

We head towards an intersection of walking and mountain biking trails, where Tarbarrell Moss, one of the more remote sections of Whinlatter, leads deeper into the forest.

Maya decides we need to turn left for the next leg, dropping down through Western Red Cedar and past tree-hanging squirrel feeders, stuffed with nuts, corn and seeds, to duck under a squirrel rope bridge between the treetops.

Maya confidently leads the way, map in hand, along the final stretch. Even Olivia is finding her bearings as I carry her for a higher-level view of forest life, attempting to point out species of trees along the way and revealing my decidedly patchy knowledge in the process.

Memo to self: download the ForestXplorer app with the tree identifier before the next trip.

Wild play

By this point I’m ready for a slap-up dinner and a pint of Jennings Cooker Hoop but the girls have got other ideas. After a round of ice creams at Siskins Café next to the Visitor Centre, we head back to the WildPlay Trail, Olivia making a beeline for the Fairy Kingdom section.

We finish the afternoon leaping between toadstools, opening concealed-bark doors in the tree stumps to reveal fairy goodies and playing in a tree house, Olivia having set up an al-fresco café to sell Maya’s foraged ferns, leaves and berries from a makeshift hatch.

Bear Grylls shouldn’t start sweating just yet. But, after a weekend of squirrel trails and fairy dust at Whinlatter, we’ve come to appreciate the fragile beauty of the forest and the time we spend together exploring it.

This story first appeared in the Guardian in 2013. Liked this? Try If You Go Down to the Woods Today.

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Fireworks

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* Image from www.hdwallpaperstop.com

We sat amongst the Scrabble cushions, perched on the unforgiving bench, and sipped our coffees seriously.

I shifted on the uneasy foam. I was S for sorry.

And so the first act played out in the café, the audience secretly as eager as young chicks squawking for titbits. I watched the lunching ladies boring into their coleslaw and the writer in residence feigning an intense interest in his laptop as we both skirted the issue.

They were licking their lips by now, mentally running through the scenarios: more than friends, too public for a furtive frisson, definitely not married. We were, after all, talking to each other.

Could they see two years of ups and down etched into our faces – death, divorce and Dwynwen. Probably not. But the writer, I glimpsed, had started taking notes.

You were looking right at me, your eye shadow silver grey.

I sensed the collective munching slow to a cautious chew as I reached out and took your hand. When you squeezed back, I almost expected a standing ovation from the onlookers.

Reality television producers would be drooling about our journey and the front row would be shouting for encores.

I thought I heard a man from the back cry, “Hug her.” I took the stage direction and we melted into the moment.

“It’s like Play for Today.”

“Waiting for Godot meets Casablanca,” I ventured a smile.

It was going to be okay.

The second act moved to the churchyard, gravely reading the stones and piecing together lives shared then torn apart as we crept along the rain-washed path.

A pheasant darted through the grounds, running from its invisible assailant, while the trees entwined their leaf-scattering braches to conceal its escape.

“Winter’s coming. I can feel it seeping through my boots.”

I nodded. We had both been contemplating the cold nights alone, the Christmas meal around an empty chair. It was like staring into the eternal blackness. It was suffocating.

The dog walker glimpsed it in our eyes as he passed, the dog whimpering at his feet. I watched him hurry on by as I squeezed your hand again.

“I’m not letting go,” I said as we passed a sign by the blackened-iron gates. It read: “Cherish the flowers.”

The man from Brambles Garden Design arrived just in time for the third act, played out in the car park amid mossy cobblestones and the wagging fingers of the windscreen wipers.

I noticed he had dismounted his lawnmower, his Dayglo cagoule flapping comically in the gale. He was fiddling with his gloves in the back of the van now, whiskers twitching.

Two lunching ladies emerged from the entrance, acknowledging us with a glance as they continued their discussion of scan results and appointments with the specialist. We watched them walk to their cars as we huddled under benevolent branches.

The afternoon was setting in. The rain, rested from a momentary respite, was gathering its forces in time for the school run.

Another hour and Brambles man could knock off, heading home to light the Catherine wheels in the back garden for the kids.

He cleared his throat as we kissed.

There would be no fireworks for us tonight. Not this year, anyway.

But, as we parted, the sparkler we had shared was still alight.

It glowed.

An afternoon at RSPB Conwy Nature Reserve

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It’s the last days of the summer holidays. A time when boredom thresholds plummet, nerves are frayed and emotions run high.

So, an afternoon of fresh air and wildlife watching at the RSPB Conwy Nature Reserve seemed a good plan for myself and Maya (pictured above and below). Besides, they were having a little do to showcase the changes at the reserve over the last year.

The Conwy Connections project has delivered an upgrade to facilities at the reserve in an attempt to attract new visitors – notably families.

There’s a new play area for kids, Y Maes, a central village square for picnics, and the LookOut, a new green-built indoor space for watching wildlife across the water to the saltmarsh.

Nature walk

We followed the boardwalk on a windy but bright late-sumer day, looping through the reedbed to the Tal-y-fin hide with views across to Conwy Castle.

Wild raspberries fringed the path and autumn migrating wildfowl from Scotland and Iceland put on a winged display as the hum of the nearby A55 faded into the background.

We took the Blue tit trail, circling back towards the Visitor Centre via the wildlife garden with its clumps of scented honeysuckle and fragrant lavender. On the way, we hunted frogs by the pond and uncovered minibeasts in the shrubs.

We’re back at school in a few days but, for now, we just breathed the fresh air and soaked up the last rays of summer-holidays sun.

Press launch

Back at the event, meanwhile, the flesh-pressing and speech-making was in full effect.

And Maya? She eschewed the lengthy presentation for the monkey bars, whizzed through the tour and made it to the marquee early to snaffle the best of the cake.

That’s my girl.

Gazetteer

RSPB Conwy