We had our first full session of Forest School on Thursday morning, following the trial session back in March. As it was also the Suffolk show that day I set out in plenty of time in case of traffic, but it was all going the other direction and we were fine.
It was the actual Essex Wildlife Trust fully trained ranger this time, and she was lovely. I have of course completely forgotten her name 😳 As she is trained in the handling of fire, a firepit was a large part of the morning’s activities – Big gathered firewood and I got myself deputised to keep children out of the firesquare, which was pretty easy as there was only one who thought he would like to be in it. I liked the Firesteel
she used to start the fire, and it was easily the feature of the morning. I was of course bad mother as I’d forgotten to bring anything to cook in the fire and Big got increasingly displeased with me as other ppl cooked and ate marshmallows, hotdogs, bananas, jam rolls – whatever came to hand really. As I hadn’t even brought a picnic, just a couple of apples, there was nothing we could burn and she was cross. Am hoping there will be fire at the next session and I can redeem myself then.
After the session I bought expensive snacks from the visitors centre and we joined Em and H for their picnic, a very pleasant time for sitting and chatting. The children played mainly in view in the edge of the forest, occasionally drifting out of sight, but Big was very helpful in doing regular sorties to check that they were all still reasonably near.
We watched a rat clearing up crumbs from under a nearby table and I saw a smaller furry dart out of the undergrowth a couple of times, but too quickly for identification. Poor dogs with us went absolutely spare when a squirrel came for a looksee as well 🙂
Home mid afternoon and I was wiped, rather think I retired for a nap! Am realising that I need to be very careful with my back as it is cracking and creaking under just normal usage and anything extra like scrambling around a wood, no matter how carefully I do it, is resulting in pain afterwards.
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