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Yeah we made it! Snack time, then onto a group chat to find out about Bio Diversity Bingo. What will we discover! 🔎 🕸🕷🐜🌿🦔🌼🍃🐾

We travel from the school to the Union Canal and then along the towpath and head to Hailes Quarry Park. l will take this opportunity to thank the Parent helpers and the children for being so motivated and enthusiastic on this trip. Some were new to scooting and they persevered through the thigh burn from all that scooting!😀 It was worth all the effort to discover the area we would focus on for our John Muir Award. .

Time for our first Scoot outside of the school, Yippee! Team leader Kerr - Quick safety check and briefing. A quick reminder about our communication to each other, remember to pass info on if a cyclist is coming so we can stay in single file. Also remembering to pass on “stopping” instruction to each other so we don’t get the dominoes effect with 24 children on scooters! 🛴

10 July 2019 The message says it all. Bottle found at beach between Parton and North Shore, Whitehaven. In it was a stretched out golden bangle, a written note and two 5 cent coins.

I went on holiday last week - not far...just to the living room. But I stepped away from work, the news went off, the WhatsApps were muted, and books came out that I have long been intending to read. Each morning began with a freshly-brewed coffee and a few pages of 'Wings Over Water' - an incredibly soothing and beautiful book, which "gathers together the linocuts, etchings, engravings, woodcuts, screenprints and collagraphs of 50 printmakers with an enthusiasm for all forms of water bird." There, in the pages, are all the birds that I am missing from coastal walks and cycles - the bold patterns of a shelduck, the soft green on the back of an eider duck's head, 22 different interpretations of oystercatcher or 'sea-pie', including one from Musselburgh (route 76). There are musings about the birds - "There is something particularly wistful and wild about the Curlew." And there are details of how the artists create the work - "Slivers of wood peel away when I open the grain with a wire brush and as I cut the reflections: it suggests the shimmer on watery muds when the block is printed, and it gives my Lapwings their resting place". It has been a start to each day that I have looked forward to - when you can't lose yourself too far into the outdoors, it's nice to be lost in words and art.

H. Hear the shrieks elevated high in the trees... E. Eerily we rummage below in the forest floor... R. Rolled out two turquoise cracked eggs... O. Out of the heronry with feathers flying...N. Nestled in atop the pines.

More 'stay at home' crafting from beach finds. My husband has made these to go alongside our previously planted insect garden at school (see post 13/3/20). There is a butterfly house made from driftwood decking I found on the beach, 2 reconstructed bird houses which were rescued in a poor state from school. There is also a bee hotel using some chicken wire collected from the beach at Caulderton (see 22/3/20 post).

In 'stay at home' times I've been enjoying getting crafty and reusing items previously collected from the beach to make this jewellery: plastic straws made into beads, fishing rope as cord, shells, enamel painted stone and sea glass.