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July 2020. Sharing time together camping in the woods soon found us slowing down, losing track of time and living in the moment. Sharing such a peaceful and beautiful environment brought us closer together as a family. Rowan made a bow and arrow for Rosie's teddy bear (one she made herself). Precios times.

July 2020. We had so much fun in the Beech and Oak grove right by our camp. My brother had bought us all hammocks for Christmas and the kids played in them for hours..rain or shine. They invented many different games involving them and even managed to learn how to hang upside down in them! We dragged stones around to make a fire pit and stone seats around. Over the fire we cooked crumpets and everyone's favourites marshmallows (thanks to Suma for stocking vegan ones!) We carried on a tradition I had learnt at Brownies of scraping a cooked marshmallow onto one chocolate chip biscuit and then sandwiching it with another biscuit on top. Nothing better than spending time around a campfire with the smell of wood smoke in your hair as a happy reminder the next day!

July 2020. During our exploration of the wider woods we have found what we hope to be a spring! Wild raspberries were a treat to find. Also, we saw they were felling some trees at the edge of a neighbouring wood. Some of the trees in this area had fallen some time ago and had been lying blocking a public footpath. It will be good to have access along there in the future.. 3 of the other woodlands in the same wider woodland as us have been clear felled and have felling orders for the new owners to replant with monoculture of sitka spruce . The new owners are in the process of negotiating to be able to replant with mixed native woodland trees. Encouraging a more natural habitat and more biodiversity. Just outside the border of our woodland flows a beautiful river. We can here it while sitting at the foot of the gorge.

July 2020. Our woodland has a gorge in it. It is actually a small exploratory slate quarry from the 1800s. Ever since we first saw the woods in Dec last year Jon has been itching to cut through the fallen oak tree blocking the entrance and get into the gorge. So he did . .. and we followed! It was very overgrown with brambles, very beautiful and much bigger than we had thought. Rowan age 4 is not always the most fond of being outdoors. Yet he was so excited to get in the gorge. I really feel the exploration adventure of the gorge changed him. I could literally see his confidence growing. It seemed like he had been through an initiation!

July 2020. The purchase of our woodland in Wales completed at the end of January 2020. We had accommodation booked nearby to visit in February, March (for my birthday) and April (Jon's birthday) and in May we planned our first camping visit at Rosie's request for her 9th birthday. We invited friends to join us. Unfortunately Sorm Dennis thwarted our February visit and then lockdown prevented our 3 other planned visits. As soon as restrictions were lifted we were excited to visit the beautiful woodland we have become guardians of and hope to make our home under the One Planet Development Scheme. It's a 5 hour journey even without stops for the children. By the time we arrived it was already quite late. We couldnt help ourselves in wanting to explore it again! As the sun was starting to set we thought we should get the tent up. The clearing wasn't as clear as we remembered at all! Very bumpy and lots of tree stumps so no space for our tent there..Jon levelled (ish) a space near the Beech and Oak grove and somehow managed to get our enormous tent down the steep bank. The kids did some colouring while we set up and enjoyed our first night in our woodland. Waking up to that view was amazing! Not every night was peaceful though..I had been hoping there would be owls..well the squeaking of baby tawny owls kept us up a good couple of nights!!

5th August 2020-Boggle Hole A family day to hunt for fossils on our favaourite beach on the east coast of the NYMNP, Boggle Hole. Darcie, Oscar and Rowan all enjoyed hunting for fossils and everyone found something and learnt a little about the geology of the coastline.

It was important to learn what plants to avoid. The 2 common ones we spotted on our walks were Foxglove and Giant Hogweed. From the Woodland Trust website we learned about the dangers of these flowers being eaten. These plants we saw in the wild and in people's gardens. We were aware from news article about the dangers of Giant Hogweed, however wanted to learn more about how to spot it. A video on YouTube filmed in Stirlingshire shows examples of Giant Hogweed and Cow Parsley. The two can often be found together. We spotted Giant Hogweed next to wild raspberries on NC7 cycle path at Loch Lubnaig and next to footpath at Duncyrne Hill in Gartocharn. We are now sharing how to spot Giant Hogweed with all of our friends so that they avoid it.