now we smell of smoke...

On Friday, Podd had the day off work specially. Reason being, we all went to a new forest school that has just started in the nearby St Ives Estate.

We packed up our lunch bits and set off on the bus. On Thursday evening there had been a downpour of sleet and rain and we spent a while peering outside wondering whether the combination of sleet and wind would result in a cancellation, but come Friday morning everything had calmed down and there was just a bit of ice to contend with. The bus journey was uneventful (apart from the obligatory "are we there yet" and "how long does it take to get there?!"), and we had only a small issue with negotiating sheet ice in the car park.

We made our way to the fire circle, which was actually a square, and sat down to eat our lunch. We had packed hot soup and bread which worked really well as it was obviously very chilly despite the clear sky and strong sun. Some other families arrived, including Kat over at A Space to Grow and the session started with the leader telling everyone some rules about building a fire, and then sending those who had already eaten out to collect some wood. Once the fire was started the kids disappeared off into the woods with the leader and did a number of activities (I use the phrase disappeared in a loose sense - we could still see them and they were free to come back for hugs and drinks and to give excited updates as they wished, but they were far enough away that they could do their activities without our supervision/interference ;) lol), which were largely centered around teamwork and friendship building for this first session. The parents were left to keep the fire going, so we stood about and chatted, and Podd and Tiny Clanger went for a walk to see what they could find.

At the end of the group everyone came back to the fire circle and we made hot chocolate with some water that we heated in a kettle suspended over the fire. We talked about what whether the setup of the session had worked, what we enjoyed about the session (the kids mostly enjoyed making tents and drinking hot chocolate), and what we would like to do next time (which was almost unanimously making shelters from what was available in the woods).

All in all we had a really lovely day, and came home tired but happy and smelling of smoke. The clothes all went in the wash, and the sprogits all went in the bath when we got home. We are really looking forward to the next session in the new year. I shall leave it here for now but update with the pictures we took when we've put them on the computer (we forgot to take the camera so had to snap them on our phones... hopefully they've come out ok!)