More TCTOP training

So today I went off to Colwall to do the next part of my Three Counties Traditional Orchard Champion training. 

We spent some time in a wonderful traditional orchard

 as well as Colwall Orchard Groups base and allotments.

This is their fabulous compost loo.

Food handling training - with a difference!

So yesterday I spent all day on a CIEH (Chartered Institute of Environmental Health) Food Safety Level 2 course - with a difference!

I spent it outside, cooking in the woods at Bishops Wood Environment Centre

We were an assorted group of ( mostly) Forest School leaders, but although I am a FS Leader, I was actually there with a couple of other Love Food Hate Waste Ambassadors, as we want to do some cooking demonstrations as part of our volunteer role.

We talked through the usual Food Safety stuff, different bacteria, danger zone/safe zone temperatures, how to keep clean, the use of different colour coded chopping boards, general food preparation,  the importance of proper storage and reheating,

and then we put it all into practice by making a delicious vegetable soup for lunch, cooked over the fire

We also toasted teacakes and made hot drinks and then mid afternoon packed up camp to do the CIEH (Chartered Institute of Environmental Health) Food Safety Level 2 exam

I have done a more conventional version of this course before and although it was helpful I did have a lot of questions about cooking outdoors which were not really addressed. This time they were :)

The course was taught by Sal Teasdale of Anubis Training - those of you who read my past posts will know I have done lots of training with Sal and Anubis and as usual the whole day was excellent.

Just hope I have passed!

What I was up to, today....

Today I went to a bare field and created this...with several other people and a really great tutor!

spent the day making this...on the school field....

making more of them with the children next week................

Monday....mutterings

First day of my CTLLS course in Hereford. I felt very ill part way through, all giddy and faint and had to sit out in a cool room for a while, which was not what I needed.

I still feel rather giddy and unwell.

Also there is loads of work involved, far more than we all thought ( not just me!) and I am looking at the diary and wondering how I can double up time to make 14 day weeks, for the next 15 weeks,

Maybe think I have taken on more than I can cope with this time. A lot of my adult teaching is with "drop in" parents and children on environmnetal play and craft sessions which makes sorting out a schedule for being assessed for the course a bit of a challenge!

oh dear......

Wine! I need Wine! where are my minions bearing goblets of drink!

A day training as a Fire Marshal.....

Off on a Fire Marshall course today.....

Somehow I bet the weather changes and these were the two lovely gardening days, and then, when I am around again, the weather turns bad?
CM doing things in the loft and garden, CG last day at school before half term ( gulp)

Later on....at 5.30 pm

Am back from Fire course, now a certified Fire Marshal, so have a silver star on my chest and am armed and ready to rock and roll with an extinguisher....if this blog catches fire, I will sort it out!

Course was held at Anubis at Eaton Bishop, they are really good and excellent trainers who make all this stuff memorable, in a fun way.

Spent some time putting out pretend fires ( a large stone obelisk obliged by pretending to be the fire...) with all sorts of different types of extinguisher...Simon the Firefighter was brilliant and very kind and patient with those who were a bit concerned........he also took us in small groups into a smoke filled ( synthetic, safe to breathe...) room and we had to find our way out...glad I didn't have to do it for real as it was very unpleasant...

I am even more admiring of Firefighters, tbh...the idea of deliberately going into a building/situation, where you can't see for smoke and burning bits of stuff fall on you...to rescue total strangers...hmmm.......I might be brave enough to do something like that for my loved ones ..but I sure as hell don't think I am made of the sort of stuff to do that as a job....

Priority now is to shower and put ALL the clothes I was wearing in the wash....All my SMOKEY clothes from today smells disgusting, synthetic smoke is much worse than nice woodsmoke....yuck not an alluring smell..... .

Mastercrafts on TVtonight at 9 pm BBC2 Monty Don and heritage Crafts........lovely!

First Aider!

Hmmm I had various posts scheduled to be published in this last week but it doesn't seem to have worked? As they all seem to have been published today? Ah well I must have done something funny with the posting times.....

ANYWAY.......

I am now the VERY proud holder of a First Aid at Work certificate! ...the proper, HSE, four day job!

I already have a paediatric first aid certificate ( a 3 day course) which I took last spring because I work with children as an Environmental Educator and playworker, Epi-pen training (which I have now updated 3 times in the last 18 months as it only lasts for 12 months in a school setting even though the certificate actually is valid for 3 years..) which allows me to help administer adrenaline to someone in the event of them having an anaphalaxis episode,

and a specialised two day "First Aid in the Outdoors" course which I did as part of my Forest School leader training in July this year.

BUT I now ( again) have a full First Aider certificate

I first did this training back in 1985 ( not 1990! I went and checked!) at work, I kept it up until I left work in the mid 90's...but then I (rather foolishly) let it lapse.

In 1985 it was a very different course, a lot more bandaging was involved as I recall, and if you failed anything you failed the whole course. Also the recusitation programme was MUCH more complicated back then. Apparently it has been changed because it was puting people off doing anything to help? in case they got it wrong? Hmm well if someone has stopped breathing, they will be dead in a few mins if no one does something..so IMO simplifying the guidelines is a Jolly Good Thing in my book!

I also worked during the 80's and 90's in a very specialised research establishment so had to do extra training in the sort of hazards I might encounter during my day to day working life..( HF and other nasty acids figured large, as did using breathing apparatus to get out of a toxic fume filled lab) ...I worked in a semiconductor research facility so we had some "interesting" training to deal with potential first aid cases !

Fast forward 30 years...and I am , once again, qualified to help people as a First Aider...perhaps not in quite such a hazardous environment but still...I can feel confident I know what I should be doing.

I have to thank Anubis Training, once again, for a wonderful course which made the complicated, seem easy.....And I am VERY proud of myself.....So sorry if I am blowing my own trumpet a bit..but I AM very proud of myself!

Yet MORE Forest School stuff!

I have spent the MOST amazing two days doing my Forest School Leader training practical woodland sessions over the last two days!

Making a camp to work under.
The site of our "tribal camp"

Part way through constructing our shelter
Our finished camp!


We have been in Aconbury Woods demonstrating that we can show the children how to use tools safely, teach them woodcraft stuff and have been making shelters and tools and generally being assessed on our skills , safe practice and ability to show children how to do stuff.

Day 5 of Forest School

a day in the woods, making things,







baking things over a campfire





oooooooooo it was SUCH fun!!

planning sessions for children to have fun in the woods...

Oh I am SO inspired....

More Forest School.

I have spent another 2 days this week on my Forest School Leader training course...we spent a day doing academic stuff and natural crafts today and OH! what fun it was...

We did some natural material crafts...painting with natural dyes.



and this is a garland I made out of dogwood, ivy, dandylions and buttercups

A Woodland Birthday!

This week I have been doing the first part of my Forest School Leader training. I spent three days this week doing a mixture of classroom and outdoor activities including a day in the woods at a local Forest School site. And it was my birthday during these days!






First job was to put up a shelter, using rope and knots we had learnt the day before

Then we had an "ice breaker" activity...we were given an egg and had to devise a carrier from natural materials so the egg could be thrown around without breaking. Here is ours..a piece of Wellingtonia trunk with a hollow for the egg, packed with moss, mud and then covered with bark from a Silver Birch, pegged into place with Elder pins....

And it WORKED!!

We did various craft activities, practicing safe hand tool use

and then after lunch round a large campfire, we split into groups and practiced making a small fire of our own and extinguishing it properly and safely..

Our final task was to make a stock fence out of gathered fallen wood. Here I am sharpening the stakes

and banging in the posts!

The finished fence!

It was very muddy underfoot as we have had some torrential rain around here in the last few days BUT it was really interesting, I learned a lot and had good fun as well. I have further academic and practical sessions over the next few months to come.

And then we left the wood as we had found it...