The annual elderflower-fest!

Elderflowers, like everything else, have come very late this year!  But that means we are still enjoying them now.  We had what has become a much-loved annual event this morning: the making of elderflower lemonade.  I have given the 'recipe' (ha!) for this previously, but the idea of it is that the kids get to pick the ingredients, make and drink the stuff within the space of about an hour - no delayed gratification! - which is a wonderful experience for them.  It tastes different every year as no measuring is involved, and this year's rather sour offering went down an absolute treat, with second helpings being clamoured for all round. 

Here are three recipes for elderflower drinks you can make very easily.  The champagne (no. 2) is my personal favourite.  I've just downed a bottle of it (it's non-alcoholic - at least I think so!) while sitting here.

1                    ‘Instant elderflower lemonade’ as we make at the group

Some lemons

Some elderflowers

Some sugar

Some boiling water

Squeeze lemon juice into pot, add flowers (not stalks), sugar and water, mix, come back in an hour, strain and drink!  Sing lots of songs and do various bits of magic over the pot as you go.  Make children feel very honoured at being trusted with very hot water.

2                    Elderflower champagne (non-alcoholic fizz – really like magic! Uses the natural yeasts found on the elderflowers)

Makes about 6 litres

36 elderflower heads

1 lemon

680g caster sugar

3tbsp white-wine or cider vinegar

4.5 litres water

Remove stalks and put flowers in clean bucket/large pan, along with lemon juice and rind (no pith!), sugar and vinegar.  Add cold water, stir to dissolve sugar, and leave for at least 24 hours. Strain through muslin or jelly bag into sterilised bottles with screw caps, corks or flip-over lemonade tops.  Leave for TWO WEEKS.  Check occasionally that they aren’t getting too fizzy – if so you’ll need to open the tops to let the excess gas off or else they might explode!

3                    Elderflower cordial (keeps for a year or more, dilute to taste)

Per litre cordial use:

12 elderflower heads

1 lemon

1 pt water

1.5lb sugar

Water, sugar and rind (no pith!) together in pan, heat till sugar dissolved.  Remove stalks and stir flowers into this syrup.  Cool completely.  Add lemon juice.  Strain through muslin or jelly bag and put in sterilised bottles.

NB. To sterilise bottles you don’t need special tablets, just fill them with boiling water and leave for a while. 

NB2. For all recipes, try and get fresh, whitey-yellow elderflower heads, not the slightly ‘off’ looking (and smelling) brownish ones.

Fire, earth, water and...weather!

Well the blog's been quiet but we haven't.  All winter long (and it was another long and cold one) we have continued to meet every week and it never ceases to amaze me how many families turn up even in the grimmest weather.  And of course it's rarely as grim as you think it's going to be when you look out the window before setting out.  I think we've only been actually rained on once or twice all year so far.

One of the reasons I have become a lot less faithful with the blog is that we have been going for SIX YEARS now and many of our activities repeat, in a rather nice way, from one year to the next.  Every June we see the elderflowers coming and get ready to make elderflower lemonade - every winter we spend a couple of sessions racing around gathering 'nest' materials to keep warm - every April we gather cherry blossom to make potions...

But the children grow and change, their parents too, new ones come along, and our routine changes to suit them.  This gang at the moment, for example, just love climbing up and down the roots of the story trees.  So we tend to go there almost every week, and whatever other activity we're ostensibly doing, a lot of the old climbing goes on.  They also love stories.  A regular cast of puppet characters has evolved, led by the ever-faithful Mummy Mouse, and the story is very rarely missed out.  The children who come at present are mostly aged 1 or 2, so as they grow up towards the lofty age of 3, we may take on a bigger range of activities.

The park is changing too.  There's less funding about to look after it, so the wildlife area is looking pretty rough and the pond was in danger of becoming a swamp last autumn.  We participated in a reed-removing morning - seven or eight of us getting knee-deep in pond water to clear it out.  And thank goodness we did, as it's been a bumper frog year and we have paid the growing tadpoles many visits.  It'll need doing again this autumn, and maybe we'll need to get more involved in litter-picking, planting and so on, to keep it the beautiful place we love. 

We carry on doing very simple activities that get the children involved with the elements.  Lots of water (doing the 'laundry' in the woods, making 'perfumes' and 'soups'), earth (digging for creepy-crawlies, running down slopes and getting mouthfuls of the stuff).  And now also FIRE!  Yes, after many years of shying away from actually making real fires in the woods, we have acquired a FIRE BOWL - a wonderful thing that lets us have a very confined small fire, with no risk of burning down the woods!  We've made popcorn and hot drinks and I am already looking forward to elderflower pancakes!

Let us share our 'fire song' with you - subtly constructed to persuade the children to sit back and not come too close to the fire bowl.  Sing to the tune of 'Miss Polly had a Dolly':

We're making a fire and it's hot, hot, hot,
The sparks will dance around a lot, lot, lot,
So we'll sit back together in a ring, ring, ring,
And watch all the flames dance and sing, sing, sing.

Give something back to our wonderful park!

Well, you know we are West Bank Park patriots - other parks may have better playgrounds (OK, much better playgrounds), but we love its woods, meadows, wild spaces and...its POND!  Except that - the pond is so choked up with reeds, it's in danger of becoming a bog, a mire, a marsh, a sump.  And worse still: the wildlife area around it is suffering too.  All the herbs and insect-friendly planting are getting completely swamped by ground elder.

All of which gives us a chance to help improve things!  Jenny Cairns, our Park Ranger, is organising a volunteering afternoon on Monday 8th Oct, 1-3pm.  She is recruiting helpers to pull reeds and ground elder, and do some new planting of butterfly-friendly species.

The wildlife area has been an absolutely invaluable space for our group - we have marvelled at frogs mating (see above - but you have to look closely!) and at their spawn and tadpoles, fed birds and spied on them through toilet-roll binoculars, done treasure hunts and picked blackberries there.  So let's try and send a few volunteers from our group to help Jenny.  We can organise joint babysitting.  And group funds will provide cake and hot chocolate all round!

Not So Young Friends!

As we have now been going for more than five years (!!!!) we have an increasing number of 'graduates' who are currently working their way through primary school.  We want to see you all back again!  So we are organising two events this summer for 3-9-year-olds.  It'll be just like Very Young Friends - but fewer nursery rhymes and more expertise!

Firstly, the excellent Graham Banwell, of the OPAL project, will come to help us hunt minibeasts on Monday 20th August, 2-4pm.  The things he knows about slugs and earthworms....well, personally speaking I found them hard to believe when he told them to me. 

And then, using the equipment of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, we will go pond-dipping with nets, trays, magnifiers and identification charts.  Our pond is more or less perfect for dipping as it's so full of reeds and vegetation!  Date for that: Thurs 23rd August, 2-4pm.

But we hope to see you there - whether you are a former Very Young Friend, or any other person with a child in that sort of age group.  Please note that parents must stick around as we haven't gone through any bureaucracy in order to be responsible for your children.

How embarrassing!  Our last post was over a YEAR ago!  We have the usual excuse that we are too busy playing in the woods to be sitting at computers blogging about what we do...but still...we must do better!  This is my summer resolution.

Let's make up for it with some recent news:

1) Tomorrow is our BIG TODDLE to support Barnardo's work with under-5s.  We have raised £145 online (so far) plus donations given in 'real money' using sponsorship forms - an unknown amount.  If you'd like to sponsor us go to this page.

2) This summer, as well as meeting weekly as usual, we will have some additional sessions for slightly older children.  The sessions will be aimed at 3-9-year-olds - we could call them our 'graduates'! - but in usual VYFWBP style, bring any older or younger ones you need to bring.  One of them will be POND DIPPING (always beloved), hopefully with the support of the local wildlife trust, and the other will be MINIBEAST HUNTING with the excellent Graham Banwell of the OPAL project. Dates to be confirmed.

There is nothing like the thrill of the chase...all children have hunters' instincts!

More generally, how is our group doing? Thriving!  We have lots of new and enthusiastic members - and their parents aren't so bad either.  In recent months we've been making 'perfume', planting in the wildlife area, playing in dens and tunnels, painting, treasure hunting, 'camping', enjoying lots of songs, making elderflower lemonade, hearing stories about the animals who live in the park.  We go round with the seasons, and for old hands like myself it is a lovely thing to revisit activities we last did a year previously.

And best of all - the group is very hardy these days.  The weather makes almost no difference to how many families turn up - and a good thing too, this very damp and soggy year!

The new play equipment is finally here!

The fundraising and tendering process has been a long one, but finally most of the new play equipment is in the playground. See right for some of Elly Ross' beautiful photos of the kids in the group enjoying it.

There have been a few hiccups - bamboo posts being torn out of the ground by someone who didn't fancy watching whatever was on telly that night (we suppose), and the much-longed-for children's bird hide not turning up yet. This has now been re-ordered, so let's hope it's there soon.

In 'Other News', I (Catherine) am on 'maternity leave' from the group till about mid-June, so a fabulous rota of other group members having been leading sessions since March. Every one I've been at has been great. New members always welcome at any time!

Winter 'Wonderland' wearing a bit thin...

What a winter!!! Snow is indeed fun to play in, but after four weeks it is starting to lose its charm for our intrepid band of woodland explorers. As the chorus of freezing-toed toddlers reached a peak, we have had to beg the church hall for our last few Thursdays. We finished off 2010 with a Christmas party, making Advent wands and singing lots of carols.

Before the freeze hit in late November, the autumn was a busy and lovely time, with an always large group of children and parents meeting every week. We watched the birds; we had treasure hunts and Gruffalo walks; we made garlands and autumn decorations; we created imaginative (and lardy) bird and animal feeders; we constructed pulley systems and filled our little wicker baskets with all kinds of treasures; we set up woodland shops; we did our 'laundry' and hung it out to dry.....

Meanwhile, we have also been very busy with our plans for improving the playground. Our fundraising efforts came to a creditable £7200, including a ward committee grant, a generous grant from the Rowntree Foundation, and four other local charitable trusts. This is not a huge amount in playground terms, but enough for a nice little area of timber climbing/balancing equipment in the wooded part of the playground - known as a 'Trim Trail'. We wrote a brief for the job and sent it to five local companies, all of whom met us on site and four of whom bid for the work. We have chosen our favourite and passed the details on to the council - we hope to see progress over the winter.

We will keep you posted!