As I hinted we would in yesterday’s blog, we did indeed go out foraging in the mid-afternoon. We collected enough blackberries and apples to make two pies. I must say that peeling and coring apples the size of plums is a bit of a faff but having picked the things I felt obliged to make use of them. And no amount of advice from Dr Michael Mosely on “Just One Thing” about how much of the benefit of eating apples comes from eating the skin was going to persuade me to eat the skin on these little apples. Once peeled and cored, they tasted fine by the way.
This morning, walking the small grandson around the village, we noticed a prodigious number of blackberries that have ripened since yesterday. We sampled a fair few and almost regretted not taking a box of some kind to collect more. The mix of heatwave, drought and a longish period of warm but dull days seems to have boosted the harvest this year. I’m quite surprised that nobody has begun a campaign to promote foraging as a way of helping cope with the crisis.
The little fellow and I were on our way to the park but in fact we never made it. Once we had walked round the village past the two millponds and through the woods he sighed, settled down in his buggy, closed his eyes and had gone to sleep. I had already been warned that he had had a bad night and might be likely to fall asleep.
Reading articles like this one, I have decided that being a parent (I really object to talking about ‘parenting’) is more complicated than it used to be. I remember back in the time when we were a group of young mothers together one friend whose three year old had an exhausting (for the mother) programme of activities almost every day of the week. But mostly we just met as a group once a week and maybe had our older toddlers in a playgroup and that was that. We were all,amazed at how much that one mother packed onto a week. Now it seems that you need to have your child stimulated almost all the time and to achieve certain levels and receive certificates. My own children had swimming lessons and that was about it. Yes, we aimed to pass tests and get badges and certificates but, fortunately, there was no social media to display their achievements in any kind of competitive sense.
Our daughter takes her small boy to a toddler music group once a week and both her small ones go to a small people’s drama group. I’m not sure that she totally appreciates the six year old’s involvement in “productions” which they feel obliged to attend. Even going to the library has a competitive aspect these days. Over the summer our two small grandchildren were enrolled onto the “Reading Challenge” and received medals for borrowing a certain number of books. That one is a challenge I approve of however. Anything that boosts interest in books is good.
Still on children, today I found myself watching “Octonauts” with the small boy this morning. I have marvelled on a number of occasions at how a three-year-old can know so many odd facts about sea creatures. The source is this animated series. The cartoon character have undersea adventures and then the nature-study facts are summarised at the end. Great stuff!
I think our pro-fracking government needs to watch similar animated series!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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