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As a family we are adjusting to covid19 stay at home restrictions and we are enjoying getting creative. We painted these driftwood snakes and talked about habitats and camouflage while we placed them around the garden.

22/3/20 I had wanted to return to the quiet Caulderton beach so it was an ideal place to go during early Covid19 family isolation. On my first John Muir journey I noted the amount of beach litter collecting on the pebbled beach so I took my family for some beachcombing fun. Jack and I enjoyed a throwing game with a recovered frisbee, he had fun dressing up in his newly found builders helmet, played with a near perfect bouncy ball, we attempted fish box sledging down the steep pebble bank (it didn't work) and collected some driftwood, colourful straws, fishing cords and nets for craft projects at home. A great afternoon out.

21/3/20 An amazing walk out with my family, rated excellent and best beach by my 2 sons. Lowca foreshore is very quiet and a hidden gem. Excellent for clambering around tidal worn yellow sandstone rock exposed in low tide conditions, lunar like with tunnels, boulders, bridges and deep pools to explore. Great to get close up to a diverse range of species on this rocky shore. In the photos you can see the green leaf worm egg, the red seaweed polysiphonia which grows on knotted wrack and a washed up deceased razorbill. I first learned about these birds when starting my John Muir journey when I observed colonies of them nesting on the St Bees cliffs with their finer framed cousins, the guillemot. They spend most of their time out at sea only coming to land for nesting so I was lucky to get an up close encounter to learn about these sea birds.

20/3/20 Great to meet up with the Walkmill Gruffarolls to share some of the exciting things happening at the beach. Seeing things from a different perspective with little children with us, like the letters spelled out by the tiny mussels. Cathy noticed the trails on the dry rock and then we were able to spot the culprit periwinkle on the move, which feeds on algae creating the markings. Really excited to see the first green leaf worm eggs of the season, these small blobs of green jelly like material are encased and woven into the seaweed to protect them from the tides. Jack (7) wrote an impressive list of 22 creatures we had spotted for his habitat work at school.

13/3/20 After researching plants that encourage bees and butterflies a few parents from St Bridget's C of E Primary joined me in digging over and clearing a small disused garden bed area in the school grounds. We were grateful for plants donated from local garden centres and got the area all planted up. We also started some plants from seed to grow for planting which are attractive to pollinating insects. Later in the year we plan to plant lots of Spring flowering bulbs on the edge of the grassy play area for early feeding for the bees. It will also brighten the area up and help the children learn about Spring.

Have you ever played musical statues? Or should I say have you ever tried it scooter style? P5 having great fun learning to be able to stop safely and make good decisions when manoeuvring. Big thank you to Kerr from Sustrans for introducing us to this game. 😀

Session 1: Safety First 😀 Helmets-check ✔️ High vis jackets- check✔️ Safety Briefing-check✔️ Scooters safety check- check✔️ Let’s get started!

Last week, I was thinking of buying a kayak. I was on a 'home commute' - getting outside for the same time as my normal walk to work - and was watching the moorhens calling, displaying and looking for nest sites around the dense vegetation at the far banks of the Union canal (route 75), but dodging crisp packets, footballs and bobbing plastic bottles. I thought back to Spring last year when we took volunteers out in canoes here to collect the litter that collects in these spots - it was a bit later in the season and there were moorhen babies in the reeds, pretending to be tiny dinosaurs. Last week, group volunteer activity had just been suspended due to coronavirus and I thought a morning litterpick in a new kayak would be the perfect social-distancing ‘conserve’ activity to fill the time lost, and make a difference. How quickly things change. A few days later and we are only recommending indoor volunteering activities, and the country is in outdoors-limiting lockdown - nothing more than one daily bout of local exercise. It is a challenging time and so maybe sensible to turn to the Five Ways to Wellbeing, developed by the New Economics Foundation - Be active, Take notice, Learn, Give, Connect. At work, we are now encouraging volunteers and route users to simply take notice of what they see on their daily walks and cycles, and then share share share what they see, think and do. Posts on our volunteer Facebook group have gone up. Things like #naturecheer and #WildlifeFromMyWindow and #BreakfastBirdwatch and #oneaday are being used widely on Twitter already. Lots of people are talking about iRecord. And there are loads of great new resources being developed for home learning - already Butterfly Conservation has issued recorded webinars on ID, and bumblebee guru Dave Goulson has made a video of common species. It feels like everyone is naturally turning to these Ways to Wellbeing. Of course, they dovetail with the John Muir Award perfectly, so for my Award, I will be doing the same – my daily outings can easily be on Network routes, my eyes are open, my recording app is ready and my Bird Biology textbook has been unopened for far too long anyway. No litterpicking. But I love a hashtag. So, onwards... Stay well.