Family Time
A new kind of fun: my first festival with a baby
Dancing at 6am as the sun rises. Making friends with strangers who you’ll never see again. Waking at noon with a terrific hangover and gasping for water in a stuffy polyester cocoon. These are my festival memories. And there’s one very obvious thing missing: a baby. For me, pre-parenthood, babies and festivals were not compatible. In fact, in the years before children, I probably couldn’t have imagined anything worse. Then along came my firstborn and everything changed. Now everything revolves around babies – especially our holidays. Seb was a November baby, and when I began thinking towards summer, I realised I didn’t want to miss out on those idyllic festival experiences. I knew it would be difficult, but just how difficult? Really, really difficult? Make-you-want-to-pack-up-and-go-home-and-cry difficult? Surely there’s a reason families keep going back to Glastonbury. Perhaps it was FOMO, or perhaps I wanted to challenge myself; either way, I...
A new kind of fun: my first festival with a baby
Dancing at 6am as the sun rises. Making friends with strangers who you’ll never see again. Waking at noon with a terrific hangover and gasping for water in a stuffy...
Voice of a Grandparent: Karen
Hello, I’m Karen, and I’m grandparent to Gabriel. A love of nature is the legacy I hope to leave my toddler grandson. Together we have smelled wild garlic, seen a frog surface from a pond, listened to magpies, wondered at a fox sauntering by – all within the environs of his urban home, where I care for him three days a week. We regularly spend time sitting and watching the ants emerge from the stones in his back garden, or scattering dandelion seeds with our breath. Simple pleasures, all around us. I fear, however, that in today’s technology-heavy homes, the flat screen may win the day, keeping him indoors, away from nature, as he gets older. Technology has its place and is hugely beneficial in many ways, but learning about the wonders of nature second hand, boxed inside four walls, is no substitute for the real thing. I have one...
Voice of a Grandparent: Karen
Hello, I’m Karen, and I’m grandparent to Gabriel. A love of nature is the legacy I hope to leave my toddler grandson. Together we have smelled wild garlic, seen a...
How to make your own flower crown
Is there anything that says “Summer, come at me!” more than a flower crown? I think not, says Beci Orpin. Flower crowns have also been a mainstay in music-festival fashion for the past few years, but you can make a flower crown for any reason or any season. We have gone for a crazy, over the-top crown here, using a fairly simple collection of flowers, but with maximum volume potential. I’d say this floral beauty is more suited to an afternoon tea party rather than bouncing around at a festival, but it’s up to you. And I’m pretty sure Frida Kahlo (the queen of all flower-crown wearers) would approve, too. YOU WILL NEED Florist wire or thin wire Wire snips A variety of flowers and foliage: choose different shapes, textures and colours but make sure they complement each other (I used gyp/baby’s breath, sedum and pink hypericum berries) Scissors Floristry...
How to make your own flower crown
Is there anything that says “Summer, come at me!” more than a flower crown? I think not, says Beci Orpin. Flower crowns have also been a mainstay in music-festival fashion...
Make the most of summer days with these ideas
Summer is the afternoon of the year, a time for breathing out and letting go. It is also the time of long summer holidays which are full of promise for parent and child alike. Homeschoolers may be looking for a change of pace to reflect a different season, and parents with children at school for the majority of the year enjoy reconnecting with their families and having a break from restrictive routine. The reality of filling days of unreliable British weather, however, can be daunting and having a few tricks up your sleeve will help the holidays pass with success. Like any good party, for the summer to feel dreamy and effortless, a certain amount of planning is required. While there’s no need to dictate busy activities for every minute of every day, some structure to your unstructured time can be a helpful motivator for children when they simply feel...
Make the most of summer days with these ideas
Summer is the afternoon of the year, a time for breathing out and letting go. It is also the time of long summer holidays which are full of promise for...
How singing outdoors can connect us to the natu...
Stepping into the rainy woods on a weekday morning with your toddler might not seem like an enticing proposition. As mother to a five-year-old myself, I often recoil from the blurry scene outside my window, and I’m a staunch outdoorsy type. In all but the most ferocious weather though, there are gems of experience to be found among the mud and puddles. Children, at first reluctant to venture out, soon seem to find breathless adventure once feet meet soil, even in nondescript corners of scrubby green space. What has revealed itself to me over the three years I’ve been running Wild Birds Singing, a woodland singing group in Devon for children and families, is that a little infrastructure offers the encouragement and support that can make all the difference to actually getting out that door. A canopy rain shelter, warm campfire, hot cuppa, chunk of wholesome flapjack and somewhere to...
How singing outdoors can connect us to the natural world
Stepping into the rainy woods on a weekday morning with your toddler might not seem like an enticing proposition. As mother to a five-year-old myself, I often recoil from the...
How to create meaningful seasonal celebrations ...
As a celebrant, I find it greatly rewarding to encourage people to create ceremonies that are relevant and satisfying for them. I strongly believe that rituals and ceremonies to mark rites of passage and life events are of vital importance to us, both culturally and as individuals. Underpinning and interwoven with these irregular events is a rhythmic, seasonal calendar of festivals, which I celebrate with family and friends. I started developing these festivals for myself when my partner’s job necessitated a move away from the Snowdonia Steiner School. I realised that in order to stay in touch with the cycle of the year in the way Waldorf education encourages I would have to embrace the responsibility of creating festivals at home rather than just going along to those provided by the school community. I have since also been drawn into following the Celtic Wheel of the Year. Creating my own...
How to create meaningful seasonal celebrations with your family
As a celebrant, I find it greatly rewarding to encourage people to create ceremonies that are relevant and satisfying for them. I strongly believe that rituals and ceremonies to mark...
Easy recipes to get the whole family busy in th...
These are some of my children’s favourite recipes. Younger children might need a helping hand. Banana milk shake Serves 4 YOU WILL NEED2 bananas (you can freeze these for an even cooler milkshake)3 cups of milk (you can use soya, dairy or rice) 1 tablespoon of tahini 2 scoops of ice-cream (optional) TO MAKEBlend all the ingredients and serve.____ Fresh fruit smoothie Serves 1 YOU WILL NEED1 bananaJuice of 2 freshly squeezed oranges Handful of berries TO MAKEBlend all the ingredients and serve. Mum might like this with a shot of aloe vera or some blue-green algae.____ Vegan chocolate cake YOU WILL NEEDFor the cake:1 cup of wholewheat spelt flour 1 cup of ground almonds1 cup of sugar 1/2 cup of cocoa powder 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder 1/2 cup of walnuts (optional) 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar (optional) 1/2 cup of sunflower oil Slightly less than 1 cup of water For...
Easy recipes to get the whole family busy in the kitchen
These are some of my children’s favourite recipes. Younger children might need a helping hand. Banana milk shake Serves 4 YOU WILL NEED2 bananas (you can freeze these for an...
A recipe for the best real hot chocolate
Having lived in Devon for nearly ten years, I am no stranger to the rather dank winters that we often get in this part of the world. This perhaps is the reason that I find myself enjoying the longer days and the new green appearing in the hedges that surround the lanes near our house. I am one of the few people who genuinely enjoy winter, with its brief daylight and long, cold nights. And, yes, even the rain clouds that lurk permanently overhead. Winter, though, is one of four seasons: a necessary part of the balance of the year – and just as last year’s potatoes have gone a bit green, and the onion pile, once seemingly limitless, is getting remarkably small, and even I am getting a little sick of near-constant welly-wearing, there is a shift. A gentle, almost imperceptible change. And with this change comes the arrival...
A recipe for the best real hot chocolate
Having lived in Devon for nearly ten years, I am no stranger to the rather dank winters that we often get in this part of the world. This perhaps is...
Sixteen ways to celebrate the arrival of spring
Lu Garner shares her love of Spring and takes a look at the Spring Equinox, a festival of balance and potential. Ever find yourself swamped by the minutiae of daily life and wishing you were lighter, angelic even? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to skip this phase and just become an angel right now? I have always fancied floating around in the ether lending a helping hand here and there. But then I have long been obsessed with the concept of angels. So many of the books and films I have seen about angels seem to suggest that they might actually envy us; specifically, the human ability to feel. We are sensual beings – we would do well to remember the enormous gift that embodiment is. What better time to honour the joy of our senses than at spring time, as the world around us is overtly shifting from...
Sixteen ways to celebrate the arrival of spring
Lu Garner shares her love of Spring and takes a look at the Spring Equinox, a festival of balance and potential. Ever find yourself swamped by the minutiae of daily...
How to naturally dye eggs
A nice alternative to the brightly wrapped plastic boxes filling the supermarket shelves, and an activity that children of many ages can get involved in. Jess Hazel and Rosalind Howard show us how to make a natural and beautiful addition to an Easter table. Your kitchen is full of natural dyes. Common food items such as red cabbage, turmeric and coffee can be used to transform plain eggs into colourful Easter gems. Children will especially love discovering all the different colours they can create – let them experiment using cooled hard-boiled eggs and bowls of cold dye. You can also try boiling the eggs in the dye for different results. Natural dyes can sometimes produce unexpected results, so don’t be surprised if, for example, your red cabbage dye yields blue eggs. YOU WILL NEED Natural dyeing agents – we used red cabbage, turmeric, beetroot, spinach and coffee Large pan Fine-mesh...
How to naturally dye eggs
A nice alternative to the brightly wrapped plastic boxes filling the supermarket shelves, and an activity that children of many ages can get involved in. Jess Hazel and Rosalind Howard...
