50 Things……

…… to do before you are 11 and three-quarters. The latest study by Play England showed a third of parents will not let children do ‘risky activities’ like climbing trees. In an effort to give both parents and children more confidence the National Trust have created a list of ’50 things to do before you are 11 ¾’.

A report commissioned by the National Trust found children today spend fewer than ten per cent of their playtime in wild places. Dame Fiona Reynolds, the Director General of the Trust, said children need to reconnect with nature by playing the games generations before them have enjoyed.

“Getting outdoors and closer to nature has all sorts of benefits for our children. It keeps them fit, they can learn about the world around them and most of all its fun. That’s why it’s so worrying that so many children today don’t have the opportunity to experience the outdoors and nature. Building a den, picking flowers, climbing trees – the outdoors is a treasure trove, rich in imagination. It brings huge benefits that we believe every child should have the opportunity to experience. And there are huge costs when they don‘t. As a nation we need to do everything we can to make it easy and safe for our children to get outdoors. We want to move the debate on and encourage people and organisations to think about how we take practical steps to reconnect children with the natural world and inspire them to get outdoors.”

Bloody hell – do kids seriously not do these things anymore?! See the full list below. What have you done?:

1. Climb a tree
2. Roll down a really big hill
3. Camp out in the wild
4. Build a den
5. Skim a stone
6. Run around in the rain
7. Fly a kite
8. Catch a fish with a net
9. Eat an apple straight from a tree
10. Play conkers
11. Throw some snow
12. Hunt for treasure on the beach
13. Make a mud pie
14. Dam a stream
15. Go sledging
16. Bury someone in the sand
17. Set up a snail race
18. Balance on a fallen tree
19. Swing on a rope swing
20. Make a mud slide
21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild
22. Take a look inside a tree
23. Visit an island
24. Feel like you’re flying in the wind
25. Make a grass trumpet
26. Hunt for fossils and bones
27. Watch the sun wake up
28. Climb a huge hill
29. Get behind a waterfall
30. Feed a bird from your hand
31. Hunt for bugs
32. Find some frogspawn
33. Catch a butterfly in a net
34. Track wild animals
35. Discover what’s in a pond
36. Call an owl
37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool
38. Bring up a butterfly
39. Catch a crab
40. Go on a nature walk at night
41. Plant it, grow it, eat it
42. Go wild swimming
43. Go rafting
44. Light a fire without matches
45. Find your way with a map and compass
46. Try bouldering
47. Cook on a campfire
48. Try abseiling
49. Find a geocache
50. Canoe down a river

I think I can safely say I’ve done all but no44, and no50 was sea kayaking, rather than going down a river. And in all fairness, when I was a kid, geocaching was possibly up there with the hovercars/living in space of the future. We didn’t even own a TV before I was 11.

Digging……

…… took place today. From the chives along past the sage and fennel to just before the peonies.  Parsley took an interest, but I suspect only from a freshly-dug poo site perspective.  Next week, we shall go and buy some timber to construct a raised bed about 3 meters long.  I was looking for a “ready to assemble” one but they’re all expensive and crap and the wrong dimensions.  So we shall build one.  Moving the existing herbs will be fun and I hope they survive.  The sage and fennel have been there for about 8 years so they should do.  I’m less bothered about the chives.  Hopefully, I will be growing rocket, pak choi and random other herbs and veggies.  I’ll keep the herbs at one end and the veg at the other.  The next project will then be to sort out the “rockery” area, which is less rocky alpines and more manky weeds and ivy.  I’ll do that; Rob can help with the heavy lifting.  And tend to his lawn.

The Littlest Donkey……

…… comes courtesy of his auntie.  It is my mission to ensure that Jake is provided with a variety of dressing-up clothes.  All children should have a decent dress-up box to play with.

We had a huge box at my gran’s house which was full of fab stuff from her next-door neighbour’s attic.  All Elsie’s kids were much older than us, so we got all the stuff they’d had plus stuff that had been added to it.

I remember a full circle 50′s style skirt that came down to my ankles, and swirled out amazingly when you spun round.

I also remember a proper slinky evening dress – 50′s style, black with big red/pin roses on it.  There was a bow on the sweetheart neckline and it all looked very exotic to my eyes.  It never fitted me.  When I was small enough to actually fit in it I had no curves and it trailed on the floor behind me and when I did have the curves and boobs I was too fat to get the bloody zip done up.  It all seemed very glamorous.

Add a handbag, a fake sweetie cigarette in an amber cigarette holder, borrow one of Gran’s handbags (always an organiser one with far too many compartments that you lost everything in), her fox-fur stole and shuffle about in a pair of her evening/dancing high heels. And borrowed some face powder, orangey/red lippie and the mascara that comes in a block with a wee brush.  Maybe some clip-on earrings, or those really old fashioned ones that screwed on your ears.  Preferably dangly.

I felt like Jayne Mansfield or Grace Kelly in one of those 1950′s film annuals.  If only I’d had a big full frock like Deborah Kerr in the dance sequence in The King and I. I could have danced with Yul Brynner.

What will Jake’s memories be? Anyone else have dressing-up box memories?

Round & round……

…… the laundry goes. Can’t be doing with all this wet washing hanging about, so am at the laundrette getting it dried. Dead exciting for a Sunday morning. However, a better night’s sleep was had: dreamt we had a lovely wee house in Waiheke Island overlooking the beach. My subconscious is clearly fed-up with cold weather and is craving a warm sandy beach.

Instead of a warm beach, we had a cold Peak District.  We drove up to Ladybower Reservoir and over Snake Pass to Glossop, coming back home via Tideswell.  Ladybower was smooth like glass and the color of molten lead.  There was nowhere as much snow as I thought there would be (or Rob hoped).  Hwever, we saw a grouse up on Featherbed Top, a heron stalking in a stream and a flock of lapwing taking off from a field.

On Snake Pass

Ladybower Reservoir

In other news……

…… I went out last night, in the cold, and dug the snow and compacted ice out from around my car.  This was to make sure that all I needed to do this morning was to defrost the car before driving to the gym before work.  Imagine my surprise this morning when I got up to discover that some tosser had dumped a heap of snow in front of my car, and that the snow had frozen overnight.  I dug it out and went to the gym.  What an inconsiderate bastard.  On the plus side, I got some exercise digging the snow……

Dr Seuss meets Call of Cthulhu……

……OMG.  Massive thanks to the amazing Jeannie Huang’s JeannieJeannie beautiful design blog for this find!  She finds the most stunning designers of all sorts of fantastic creations – really recommend that you take a look at her blog. Have a look at this!

10 places……

…… I’ve always wanted to visit.  Maybe I will some day; maybe not.  It doesn’t matter.  But they’re on my wish list.

1: Isfahan, Iran.  For as the proverb says “Isfahan is half of the world.”

2: Antarctica. Because of Apsley Cherry-Garrard:

Exploration is the physical expression of the Intellectual Passion.
And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to
give it physical expression, go out and explore. If you are a brave man
you will do nothing: if you are fearful you may do much, for none but
cowards have need to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are
mad, and nearly all will say, “What is the use?” For we are a nation of
shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not
promise him a financial return within a year. And so you will sledge
nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers:
that is worth a good deal. If you march your Winter Journeys you will
have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin’s egg.

3: Sana’a, Yemen. For the architecture alone.  And for a jumping-off point to Soqotra, home of the fantastical Dragon’s Blood Tree.

4: Cape Reinga, New Zealand.  Where the spirits of the dead enter the underworld.

5: Galapagos Islands.  For the schooling hammerheads.

6: Sistema Chac Mool, Mexico.  Have a look.  You’ll want to go too.

7: Delphi, Greece.

8: Shetland.

9: Mount Kailash.

10: Tromsø, to see the Northern Lights.

Where do you want to go?

One sentence that summarises each year of your life so far……

……um, gosh:

1974: Born in March, living in Langbank.

1975: Moved to Greenock.

1976: The Joyous One is born.

1977: No idea – who can remember being three?

1978: Big hairy caterpillars on Jura.

1979: Take a dead blue tit in for the nature table: Miss Armstrong was not impressed, but I am glad I am not in Miss Grant’s class because she was a scarey lady.

1980: I think Mum is embarrassed by Brian’s arrival as the baby Moses basket is located in a corner behind one of the living room chairs: I later discover this is probably to stop the dog knocking it over.

1981: No idea – a blank.

1982 : Also a blank.

1983: Blank – did I have a 3-year period of amnesia?!

1984: Kitten-heeled shoes

1985: TV!!!!!!

1986: Finish primary school – head for Greenock Academy.

1987: I get straight A-grades in my report card for everything apart from maths – I’m crap at maths.

1988: Arran, sausage sizzles and sea kayaking.

1989: Lots and lots of studying: seemed so important at the time.

1990: Pompeii, Herculaneum and pizza in Sorrento.

1991: Run amok in the Art Department and do nothing else but painting and classics for the whole academic year.

1992: Move to England.

1993: Went out for stamps, came back with tattoo.

1994: Fail Agricultural Biology, spend birthday on the White Horse at Uffington with Rob.

1995: Get pissed on by Apodemus sylvaticus and Clethrionomys glareolus a lot.

1996: Graduate and spend the summer identifying and surveying butterflies – the difference between small skipper and Essex skippers is the colour of the underside of their antennae.

1997: I win a village pub Christmas Eve fancy dress competition: I am not in fancy dress – this is how I normally dress.

1998: New Zealand & Australia – sea snakes and shark feeds off North Horn.

1999: GHP – I am overwhelmed by trees, polytunnels and an amazing team to work with.

2000: LARP.  That is all.

2001: Trees and seeds, lots of them.

2002: Buckingham Palace – the Queen is very small.

2003: The cows break down the fence and ravage the vegetable garden; one gooseberry and some onions are saved.

2004: Left conservation for mental health advocacy.

2005: Mental health advocacy work is both challenging and occasionally hilarious.

2006: New Zealand and Joy’s wedding.

2007: Egypt, lack of sharks, lots of lionfish and blue-spotted stingrays.

2008: Lots of camping.

2009: New Zealand, road trip, whales, albatrosses, and dolphins of the land.

2010: Hard work.

2011: not finished yet, but doing ok so far.

What a weekend!…….

For anyone reading this who has no idea about LRP, this weekend was the Great Erdrejan Fayre; a notable event in the LT LRP system and one which I usually think is a bit so-so.  However, due to the vast amount of plot and shenanigans, including the death of a major character, it was all high adrenaline plots fuelled fun, with attendant highs and lows.  The highs being getting entangled in some weird global plots involving a particularly unpleasant Law Demon and a beardy dwarf, lots of emo-larp around the death of the Host of the Morrigan, and very pleasant cheese and port with friends.  The lows included being utterly knackered, and seeing Debs so upset following the death of her character, who was much loved and revered in the faction.  I’m sure that, whatever she does (and she’s had loads of offers to join groups and suchlike) she’ll be great at it and put 100% in.  I just hope that her work/life balance tips more in the direction of “life” and not “work.”

Explore the stars…….

….strange new worlds, new galaxies.  Ever wanted to?  I have, and whilst I was listening to R4′s Click On on the way home, I found out about this.  Galaxy Zoo 2 – come and help identify and classify galaxies.  How cool is that?!