Week 3 had to be cancelled due to high winds. So this was Week 3 instead, and as Shona explained we’d make up for this missed week at the end.
Gabrielle, after driving the bus, rocked up in her protective bee suit ready to examine the bees in the wood, which may be ready to swarm – no lockdown for bees – and she felt quite overwhelmed with so much to do.
Visiting us this week was Mell from Forest School who by chance had a meeting with Sara Knight from Forest Schooling back in the last century (!), Karen from Halesworth Volunteer Centre and Jo Bidmead from Compassionate Communities and the Pear Tree Centre. We missed Chris, Armoral, Sally, and Elizabeth all busy with now more complicated post lockdown living.
Lockdown stories
Here was our question: what did you miss in Lockdown and what are you grateful for now?
We heard the birdsong. We missed our family, our son in France, and friends, and giving them a hug. Some were huggers and some were not huggers. Some grateful for avoiding the dilemna of if we should kiss or not! We missed the Cut Arts Centre, Snape music, the art, the people, working there as a volunteer. We missed the gathering of people, missed bumping into people. Missed mouching around. We missed (and was grateful for the missing) the sound of traffic and airplanes in the sky and loved the wood being quiet.
We were grateful to keep working, grateful for the company of dogs and chickens, grateful to find Tai Chi each morning unexpectedly with a neighbour. Grateful for learning to lunch outside wrapped up. Grateful for an unexpected knock on the door and a serenaded Afternoon Tea. Grateful for dancing and yoga, and sowing of seeds, of an apple tree, and making a pagoda that was not a pagoda.
We were fearful of catching the virus, of being arrested driving to see bluebells. Some were surprised at how sociable they were and how much they missed the company of others. How people just disappeared. The quietness.
We rediscovered cycling, discovered zooming, play reading, poetry writing, even Forest School in the wood zooming.
We were impressed with how people came together, with so much need around, so much suffering, how people rose and helped to heal.
(At this point B said: I’ll give you a hug.)
The Weaving of the poem
It took over an hour to hear our lockdown stories, and while we were saying them, Dean scribed them down on coloured paper, then disappeared into the Big Bath Bomb Dome. While some were weaving on the loom, B weaving hazel hurdles, magic happened in the BBBD. With the help of Muriel and Jo, Dean wove them together. In front of our eyes, he unfurled the rainbow of them, and read it to us. He made us a poem. It had an ending, but what was it’s title?
Kinda Forest School 
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