Walking in Avebury

Our lives have been incredibly busy lately. A combination of this and a substandard internet connection have resulted in a forced stay-cation from Blogsville. However, I'm now back with a camera full of creativity just waiting to be uploaded...

Our work load over the last few months has been relentless. Mr Inky and myself are exhausted both physically and mentally from all the stuff we've had going on. More about that in another post...this one is all about a lovely, rejuvenating day out yesterday at the neolithic stone circle, Avebury.

We come here a lot as it's not too far from where we live. We don't profess to be druids but you really can feel a wondrous sense of calm and well being here even when there are masses of people (and sheep) wandering and wondering along side you. We come here when we are unsettled and facing change and the solid, ancientness of these stones seem to ground us.

The undulating landscape is lovely and very inspiring for an arty bod like myself. I love the colours in this picture...the yellow cornfield against the blue sky and green grass...

The stones form huge circles and inner circles which are enclosed by deep ditches and high, chalky banks which are great for running along, the only risk is sustaining an embarassing injury from slipping on a fresh sheep poo (there is rather a lot).

 
This path leads to a monumental collection of 'Lord of the Rings' type trees which were very mythical looking.

When we arrived there we saw a lady chanting a spell by one of the trees and a mother and son whispering words of prayer. We felt that we needed to be quiet and respectful here like when we visit a church or stately home. These beautiful trees certainly commanded the same respect. The ribbons hanging from the branches are peoples wishes...

Under the trees was a man playing the billabong. It was a welcome a soundtrack.

The little girl tied a ribbon onto one of the roots...

...and wished that she would grow fairy wings.

I wonder what these wishes are?

 This one is my secret, yellow wish..

Some wishes were more permanent...The, somewhat, raging Pagan in me tells me that this is tree abuse, the typographer, however, says it could be art...

...talking of art, these knarly roots are are a joy to behold, never ending, interlocking...

Imagine seeing huge, protruding stones when you open your bedroom curtains!

Not a rain cloud in sight... we enter another week fully refreshed!

Washi Tape Cake Toppers!

When the Little Girl gets back from pre-school we have just over two hours of peace before we need to start the school run...and then chaos seems to reign! Our peaceful afternoons are my favourite part of the day because we have a rule only to do lovely 'Little Girl' type things such as wrapping bits of ribbon around barbie dolls, colouring, drawing family members (all with long eyelashes and lipstick) etc.

The Little Girl's favourite thing to do, however, is cooking and we have progressed from jelly to fairy cakes. Such are her cake baking skills that age 3 she can break eggs perfectly only getting a tiny bit of shell in the mix...which adds a bit of crunch! To our cakes we usually add pink icing made with icing sugar, a bit of water and pink colouring but we had a bit of white chocolate left in the cupboard so decided to use that.

We melted the chocky and then added a glug of double cream turning an ordinary cake topping into a very posh sounding 'ganache'. This basically means that the chocolate is quite silky looking and sets sticky rather than hard. We added 'micro' chocolate eggs and hundreds and thousands...yum!

Next stage of the decoration are the flags. The Little Girl is as equally excited about a plain sheet of A4 as her mother and set to making a 'no expense spared' white paper flag...

...and promptly selected the largest cake as her own...that's my girl!

Now if any of you arty/crafty bods out there in blogland have not heard of Washi tape you're in for a treat. It's basically decorative masking/paper tape which is ever so slightly transparent. Go to the Washi tape website for inspiration. Washi tape is brilliant for young children because you can rip it and re-stick it.

Anyway...we decided to make little flags for our cakes. Just cut a little piece and stick on the top of a cocktail stick....

Fold it over so it sticks to the other side and snip a little triangle out to make a flag shape...

Looks gorgeous on little cakes..!

Geocaching Adventure

Every Sunday Mr Wild Ink and I suggest to the children that we go on a lovely, long, rambling walk. It's a great thing to do as a family because we talk, giggle, jump in a few muddy puddles and get back home feeling like we truly deserve a hot chocolate/cup of tea/biccy/DVD etc. Recently our suggestion of a Sunday ramble has been met, not with enthusiasm, but a whole load of moans and groans. The whining continues throughout the WHOLE walk making it not a thing of pleasure but a miserable chore for everyone.

I felt that our local walks needed an injection of something new and exciting and I'd read about 'geocaching' in a newspaper article a few years ago. It's basically an international treasure hunt with a huge following. All round the world 'caches' have been hidden ready and waiting to be found.

After logging on to the site and registering for free we were delighted to find that loads of caches were hidden along the footpaths near where we live. We downloaded the app on my phone and followed the GPS reading which helped to navigate us to the caches.

After a longish walk, our GPS told us that we had indeed hit the spot so the children began searching high and low. We looked under big stones, piles of sticks and then the big boy spotted this in a rotten old gate post.....

It was a 'nano' cache!!!! The children were so excited (as were the adults!!). 

We unscrewed the lid and wrote our details on the log ......then replaced it where we found it ready for the next geocacher to discover.

We marked it on the app as having found it then searched online for the next nearest cache which we found in no time. This proved to be even more exciting as it have little things to swap in it (the website has suggested you bring with you a few nic-nacs). The kids chose a badge, we left some marbles for the next intrepid explorer, logged it as found then searched for the next one...

...and found it! This was an even bigger cache and the children were quite beside themselves with excitment. The brilliant thing is that all these exciting boxes are all over the place but unless you're 'in the know' you would never be able to find them. We felt like we were part of a secret and elite club!

Loads of interesting things in this one!

We logged it and left feeling very excited and quite addicted!!

Fortified by some chewy sweets found in my ancient raincoat (no GPS required), we set off home feeling like we'd had a proper adventure and had, without a doubt, earned our hot chocolates! x

Tea Staining Paper

As far as I'm concerned you cannot beat a paper based craft especially one which uses bog-standard white printer paper. Anything you've got knocking about would do really including lined paper, junk mail, old letters etc. I've photocopied some handwriting on to an A3 sheet of white paper and this looks really effective.

It really couldn't be more simple.
1. Add a teabag to a small bowl of boiling water and brew for ages, the longer you brew the darker your stain. I allowed it to brew until the tea bag was cool enough for me to handle.

2. Squeeze the teabag out directly onto the paper allowing the tea to pool and rub it all over the paper using the teabag or, if you're doing a lot of staining, some cotton wool. (The teabag bursts after about four sheets)

3. An Aga is perfect for drying your paper on but if, like me, you're not blessed with such a beast then a hair dryer is very effective. On a hot day you could peg your paper to the washing line which would look interesting and your neighbours would think you've gone mad but 'hey ho'. Hanging up wet stained paper creates a drippy effect which is quite fun.

4. Make something lovely with it. You could cover a box, make a book cover. tear it up to use for scrapbooking or ...make a flower.

Halloween Pumpkins

The newest addition to our leaf and bike strewn garden are these fetching fellows. I'm a bit 'bah humbug' about the over commercialisation of 'events' like halloween but there's a little bit of pagan deep in my soul which loves the celebration of a season change. We visit The National Arboretum at Westonbirt a couple of times a week and the smell of the muddy, wet leaves as well as the astounding colours at the moment are a wonderful assault on the senses!
Our Halloween this year was spent wandering, several times, around our little village with a small, half-naked pumpkin (she refused to wear the matching tights), an SAS soldier-come-schoolboy, and a 'dead' school girl who had real pencils sticking out of her face stuck on with special FX wax and fake blood!!!! We have no street lighting where we live so it is always exciting and we usually come across a few other ghouls and ghosties! I do love seeing all the carved pumpkins, they make me smile.

Tea Bag Rockets

In a continued attempt to draw The Big Boy away from a screen, we embarked on some science experiments over the weekend. This one was quite interesting. You need a few of those tea bags which have tags attached (we choose some disgusting licorice ones from the back of our cupboard). Open the bag out, get rid of the tag and string then empty the contents. Open it out into a tube shape, standup on a tin tray and set fire to the top. It burns down quickly then the ghostly ember flys up into the air much to the fasination of the children. The Big Boy, who's a bit good a science, tells me it all to do with convection currents, or something like that, but it's all too much for my little arty brain.

Dissecting Owl Pellets...Yuch!!!

Now here is something seriously disgusting to do over the summer! The dissection of compacted owl vomit is sure to lure any child away from their Nintendo DS (or in The Big Girl's case, an addiction to repeated episodes of 'Friends'). It really is an activity which will fasinate anybody from toddlers to Great Grannies and can be performed inside or out.

It's a regular activity in our house and so popular that The Big Boy has requested an Owl Pellet Party for his birthday! We are lucky to have an owl box in an ancient oak tree a few fields away so that we can collect a ready supply whenever we want, however, they are easier to find in the summer months. Anyone who lives rurally, after a bit of investigation, will be able to find a source...woodland, farm buildings and barns are prime locations but if you can't find or live in more of a built up area then you can buy them for about 30p from the Barn Owl Trust or from Amazon (is there anything you CAN'T buy on Amazon?).

Owl pellets are basically the undigested parts of animals which the bird has consumed (fur and bones) so by dissecting them you can get a good idea of the diet of your local owl. This mainly consists of mouse, vole and shrew bones but, if you're lucky, you may find the bones of birds, rats or frogs. The pellets are dry and look a bit like sausages and can be easily stored if you find a ready supply (in your freezer..in bags..if you can face it!)

Apart from the pellet, you will also need the following:

A pair of old tweezers (cheap ones from Wilko are good)
A few cocktail/lolly sticks (for poking)
A piece of A4 (to put the bones on)
Newspaper (for covering your table)
A shallow tray with some water in (chinese takeway trays are good or an old ice cream tub)

It's also really interesting to print out a bone chart. There is an excellent info sheet and bone chart on the RSPB website here

1. It's simple. Fill the tray with about 2-3cm of water and put the pellet in it.

2. It will rapidly absorb the water and start to dispurse...a bit of poking from a small child is always helpful to aid dispursion!

3. Tweezer out some of the fur then get your child to pull out the bones and identify on the bone chart.
This will keep your child amused for a good hour and because of the gross factor is a useful activity to keep under your belt if you have a particularly protective parent coming round...the kids will love it!

4. After dissection make sure everyone washes their hands.

Pond Dipping

 

 

 

One of the Big Boy's favourite things to do is fishing for Bullheads and Crayfish in any stretch of stream or babbling brook. Much of our summer is spent in a river and we never fail to find something interest. Sometimes we see things and we don't know what they are and the children love looking it up in our identification book.

Some fishing expeditions are spent in the pouring rain with few catches and a pot noodle, however this weekend was a wonderful assault to the senses. Our back were warmed by the July sunshine, our feet cooled (frozen) by the stream and our noses bombarded by the sent of the limes along the wall.

The Big Boy had his friend, Alf, with him. They lit fires, cooked pancakes, set fire to things and had a thoroughly lovely time.

In and Out of the Dusty Bluebells

 

We love going to the Arboretum in Westonbirt. We especially love going with Alex who knows what everything is and is also mildly obsessed with lichen...which I think is fantastic!
She also does silly things with plants which the two little ones thought was great. We made little mouse ears with Magnolia petals and bound the childrens legs with Sticky Jack, we found flowers which looked like fairy cups and probably reseeded all the dandelions for next year. The Little Ones made houses under dripping Hollies and 'hid' behind sticks, delighting in our complete inablity to find them!!

It was quiet and sunny and so beautiful. Under the trees were carpets of bluebells and billowing cow parsley. We saw little blue butterflies and were deafened by birdsong.

My friend Sarah joined us, feeling a bit harrassed, and left us feeling full of the joys of spring. What a lovely day!