Being Mrs C

Fifty things to do before you're 11 3/4!

After my recent post about how we should be allowing our children to explore the outdoors more to help them to connect with nature I was delighted to hear on the radio news this morning about the National Trust's new Fifty things to do before you're 11 3/4 campaign.

If you're not seen this on today's news then let me tell you a little about the campaign. The idea is to encourage children to put down their computer games and step away from their TV sets and instead embrace the great outdoors. They have come up with a list of fifty activities for children to try with an accompanying website where children can tick off things as they do them and receive online rewards when they reach certain targets.

The idea of linking together outdoor activities with the online world which they also want to drag children away from is, I think, a clever one. The truth is that you will never totally take children away from today's modern technology and by doing the campaign this way I think that the National Trust are acknowledging that whilst also encouraging children to do as much as they can outside.

The list contains some lovely simple ideas like eating an apple straight from a tree, throwing snow, playing conkers and finding some frogspawn. For those slightly older children there are more adventurous things like abseiling and canoeing. Obviously the simpler activities are nice and easy for children to be able to do with their parents, and cheap as well, whereas some of the more difficult ones really do need to be done as organised activities, but I would hope that the National Trust might be looking to put on things like this at some of their properties. I have also seen a few people who volunteer with the Scouts and Guides suggesting that they already help their members to complete some of the activities on the list and I hope that the National Trust has and will work with them and other youth organisations to help children achieve things.

I think the campaign is an excellent one and I really hope that it will not only encourage children, but also their parents, to get outside and embrace nature. I'm certainly planning to use the list as a means of suggesting things that we can do outside with Little Miss C over the months and years ahead. Take a look at their website and see what you could get up to with your children this weekend, or think ahead and plan to visit a National Trust property for free on the 21st and 22nd April - all you need to do is print a voucher from their website!

If you go down in the woods today...

... it'll probably be quite quiet - well it is chucking it down with rain as is typical for a Bank Holiday Monday! Luckily that wasn't the case on Saturday though when The Wick was full of children all running around as part of an Easter Hunt in aid of the Woodland Trust.

Instead of having to find eggs, children instead had to collect five differently coloured tokens that were distributed across the site and then they could trade them in for a chocolate treat - all for the fantastic sum of just 50p per child.

As expected Little Miss C and her trusty rabbit took the hunting very seriously indeed.

What was lovely about this hunt is that it was spread over a really good sized space, meaning that there was ample opportunity for children to run around and burn off some energy and they also couldn't finish the hunt too quickly either! The tokens were not too easy to find - it took us a good five minutes before we found our first one - again adding to some of the challenge for the children.

After my recent post about how we need to encourage our children to explore the outdoors this was an excellent example of how it should be done. There were young children of LMC's age pointing out flowers among the undergrowth, kids exclaiming loudly when they spotted birds and squirrels and slightly older children climbing trees with gusto. Everywhere you looked there were children of all ages excitedly running through the woods and enjoying being outside in the fresh air.  

Little Miss C seemed to have an absolute ball and her face completely lit up at the end when she realised that there was chocolate in it for her. One of her favourite phrases recently is "I like chocolate" - appropriate really for the time of year!

She also looked somewhat intrigued when she saw some of the older children up trees. I have a sneaky suspicion that it won't be too long before she's trying to do similar!

Set our children free!

You frequently hear people talking about how children of today don't play outside enough. Older generations often use the "in my day" phrases when telling of children only bothering to come home when they knew a meal would be on the table and then spending the rest of their time climbing trees and exploring for miles around where they lived.

The reality is that a lot has changed since "those days". Neary every home now has a TV set and many childrens have one in the bedroom too. There are also games consoles and handheld games which children like to spend time on too. More mothers now work whereas in previously the mother would often have a stay at home role which involved cooking nutritious homecooked meals too. The issue of "stranger danger" also didn't seem to exist in quite the same way as it does today. The press have spoken about how technology and junk food have led us to have more obese children than ever before, a couch-potato generation, yet I've not really seen many proper studies on how life is different for today's children compared to those of their grandparents' generation. That is until now.

In conjunction with the National Trust, naturalist, author and TV producer Stephen Moss has produced a report entitled Natural Childhood in which he looks at the changing relationship between children and the natural world around them. As many would expect, children are sadly spending less and less time outdoors. Some of the statistics are surprising. Three times as many children are taken to hospital each year from falling ot of bed than falling out of trees! Children in Britain also watch 17 hours of television a week - that's a staggering 2.5 hours a day and is up from 2007, despite the increase in internet usage since then. 11-15 years olds spend about half their waking lives in front of a screen - 7.5 hours a day.

That last figure in particular staggers me. That's the same as spending a typical working day infront of a computer. But these are children. Shouldn't they be running around, playing games, playing with toys, reading books, crafting, listening to music, or even just sitting and talking to other people for some of that time? I couldn't find a statistic for the average number of hours that a child spends outside in the fresh air, but I'm sadly guessing it may be very low.

Surely children need to understand and appreciate the natural world around them so that they can play their part in protecting it for future generations. If these children grow up having never seen flowers in the wild, having not spotted wild animals and birds in their natural habitats or having not apprecaited the vast array of plants and trees that we have here in the UK would they care about protecting them? Or would they instead be happy for green zones to be abolished and things to be allowed to become extinct? 

The National Trust is running a two month long inquiry to look at how we can reconnect today's children, and future generations, with the natural world. Parents, teachers and healthcare professionals all say that it should be done, but yet initiatives that are set up to do so have as yet been unsuccessful. I'm fascinated to hear their findings and to see if there is a way to turn things around. I sincerely hope so.

So, do you take your children out to play outdoors? Do you encourage them to build dens and climb trees? And if not, why not? What do you think should be done to help their generation to reconnect with the nature that is all around them? Is the modern day lure of technology too much or do we need to fight back as part of the current aim that many people have of simplifying their lives? I would love to hear your views.

Is it really October?

I mean really? Is my calendar wrong? Is it not July, or maybe August?

Both today and yesterday we've eaten lunch in the garden, worn summer clothes and had to apply sun cream to Little Miss C. But, to top it all, this is what I found when I looked at our strawberry patch yesterday!

A red strawberry, nearly ready to pick, in October! Seasonal madness!

Autumn colours

Another blogging break, but this time due to a family holiday to Northumberland and Little Miss C's first holiday. A lovely trip where we were fortunate enough to have amazing weather for this time of year. The thing that stunned us most though was the autumn colours that we were delighted to see wherever we went. Even the trees along the sides of the A1 were beautiful! Nature's autumn show may not last long, but whilst it did it was stunning.

The trip itself provided a lovely opportunity to catch up with my whole family and to spend some precious moments with them. LMC also had her first trip to the beach, although she didn't seem too impressed by the expanses of sea and sand in front of her. The grounds at Wallington and Cragside provided her with much more interest and also exercised our National Trust membership. I also found the time to squeeze in a trip to the wonderful Barter Books in Alnwick although LMC wasn't too enthralled with the book that Mr C tried to read her in the children's section, but the model railway running around the biography section was much more her kind of thing.

Sadly my knitting project wasn't finish as I'd hoped it would be, but I am at least on the home straight now with just the final two border pieces to knit. PIcking up the required 200+ stitches from each side though may be my undoing...

RSPB Dungeness

Another of the visits that Mr C and I made whilst away was to the RSPB reserve at Dungeness. This shingle filled reserve almost looks lunar as you approach in the car, but I'm pleased to say that it gave us one of the best days of birdwatching that we've ever had. Mr C's been keeping some good records of what we saw, especially photographic ones, and if you pop over to UK Nature Blog he's included a complete list as well as a couple of posts on specific sightings of the meadow pipet, Great crested grebe and the rarer Slavonian grebe.

A quick stop-off at the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve the following morning added further to our sightings. A pretty good couple of days for seeing nature and it certainly made me appreciate just how many different things are out there to be spotted if you look carefully!

Big Garden Birdwatch - Part 2

 

Whilst the physical location for my second stint at the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch wasn't quite as comfortable as my kitchen there did seem to be plenty more birds on display down at the WWA today.

Whilst others took part in the main working party activity the bird spotting team managed to see the following:

• Bullfinch
• Redwing
• Great spotted woodpecker
• Blackbird (2)
• Collared dove (14)
• Greenfinch
• Robin (2)
• Blue tit (3)
• Dunnock (3)
• House sparrow
• Song thrush (2)
• Jackdaw (20)
• Chaffinch (5)
• Goldfinch (1)
• Long tailed tit (5)
• Wood pigeon (6)
• Great tit (2)
• Magpie (2)
• Wren
• Mallard (6)
• Coot (2)
• Black headed gull
• Kingfisher
• Gadwalls (6)
• Little grebe (2)
• Siskin (2)
• Water rail

Pretty impressive in just an hour and certainly counting them all felt like hard work. By the end of it we felt like we deserved the refreshments just as much as those that had spent the morning digging!

 

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

 

Quite a nice way to start the day. Cup of tea to hand. Seat looking out over the snow covered garden. Binoculars and bird book ready. Cue lots of birds. Or not, as the case may be. 

The morning I spent an hour taking part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. Compared to when we first moved in here we certainly seem to have attracted more birdlife to the garden. Our results weren't spectacular with eleven different species in total (blackbird, black headed gull, blue tit, carrion crow, coal tit, dunnock, great tit, house sparrow, mapgie, robin and woodpigeon) but I was still more than content with what we did see, and particularly pleased with the five house sparrows.

Tomorrow I'll do it all over again down at the WWA, although I've a funny feeling that the bird hide there may not be quite as warm as my kitchen was today.  

Birds, cake, nappies and gardening

It's been one of those weekends where loads seems to have happened if you know what I mean. As it had seemed like such a long time since Mr C and I had had a day out anywhere we planed to make the most of the dry weather and lack of snow and headed up the A1 to the RSPB reserve at Sandy. We've been RSPB members for a while now, but often don't seem to make enough use of our membership and this trip was an attempt to turn that around.  

 

I was amazed at how large the reserve site was as it provided several different walking routes around through a mix of heathland, woods and also gardens around the Lodge building itself. The birdlife seemed to be keeping itself to itself whilst we were there, but I was able to see a couple of Jays playing, as well as the usual suspects of blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, robins and chaffinches. A pheasant even popped out for a bit to see what was going on. What I wasn't expecting was to bump into an old work colleague and his wife whilst there! Still, a pleasant surprise.

Saturday night was a C family gathering to celebrate my FIL's birthday and this provided a good excuse to try out another new recipe to provide him with a birthday cake. As part of my 52 in 2010 I used the Victoria Sandwich recipe in The River Cottage Family Cookbook. I've not used this book often enough yet as everything I've made out of it so far has been great. This recipe was one of the old fashioned cake ones where you weigh your eggs at the start (four in this case) and then use an equal weight of all the other ingredients. I was quite pleased with how they turned out though and the addition of both raspberry jam and buttercream icing between the two halves (Mr C's doing as I have to admit to a mid-afternoon nap at this point!) was a perfect balance.

Sunday provided me with an opportunity to start collecting all the various things that I will need once Baby C joins us. Via the local NCT mailing list someone was offering some Lollipop washable nappies that she no longer needed. I'm very keen to try using reusable nappies, so am delighted to be able to try them for free. The only thing the woman who gave them to me requested was that I pass them on to someone else once I've finished with them, or if I decide that they're not the right type for Baby C. Not a difficult promise to make. 

Making the most of the longer afternoon we put some work into the garden for the first time this year. Having popped down to Homebase for a few things, the number of cars in the car park suggested we weren't the only people doing so this weekend. There's quite a lot of clearing up to do out there at the moment and that's what we've been concentrating on for now. So much of what needs doing is still very new to us, so a pile of gardening books by the back door is helping us understand exactly what we've got and what needs pruning how. The weather forecast suggests that the cold weather and snow may be returning to us sometime next week, but at least we could pretend that Spring was on its way for a couple of hours!

Turning my attentions to outdoors

Now that the rain seems to have (temporarily) stopped I've started turning my attentions to the garden. There's lots that we need to do out there, and lots more that Mr C and I want to do if time and energy allows. 

Top of my list has to be starting off my veg plot. After a really positive start things have slowed right down - I blame some guidance about not doing anything too strenuous whilst pregnant. The reality is that if I don't make a start before C Minor arrives I'll have no real chance. The aim is to get some raised beds on the identified plot and we've even found some planks behind the of cabin, left behind by the previous owner, that will provide the wood we need. Spurred on my the arrival of the January edition of the Gardeners' World Magazine, which contains a fantastic grown your own year planner, I'm starting to work through the seeds that I've collected over the last year and, with the help of a couple of books, work out what order things need sewing in, and whether they need starting off in a propgator first or not.  

Spending time at home I'm also starting to notice more all of the feathered visitors to our garden. Since we moved in we've been leaving food out for the birds, but it's important to remember that just putting out the feeders once and leaving them there isn't necessarily enough. It's important to clean your bird feeders as well as not only can rotting food be dangerous to the birds, but just the sight of it can put them off sometimes. 

If you're interested in the nature that we see here Chez C then take a look at Mr C and my latest venture, UK Nature Blog in which we try to track the wildlife that we see in and around our back garden as well as sharing what we're learning about the wildlife around us. Contributions from elsewhere around the UK are also very welcome!