How to Celebrate Spring in the Brecks

The arrival of spring after winter is a multi-sensory event. We’ve been celebrating the season by exploring as many senses as possible through our spring events and trying out new crafts too. Here are some ways you can explore spring, inspired by our events:

Explore aromatics

Blossoms and new flowers abound at this time of year and our green spaces are suddenly scented. Some good scents to sniff out in the Brecks are: mayflower or hawthorn blossom, the bright yellow gorse flowers, the resinous needles of a scots pine in comparison to the citrussy douglas fir, garlic mustard and wild mignonette. We don’t have much language for smells in English so we don’t necessarily discuss with each other the good and the bad. We took seven people on an Aromatic Adventure in April and there discovered all kinds of different points of view when it came to interpreting smell. See if you can describe the fragrances you find as you follow your nose and, if you can, compare with a friend – you’d be surprised by the differences in opinion.

What can you hear?

From the drumming of woodpeckers, to the return of the dawn chorus, to the call of the cuckoo heralding spring, there are many new sounds to take in. To hear though, requires a quietening of our own sounds. Our group of woodland explorers on our Spring Woodland Tonic event split up to find ten minutes alone in the woods to sit still and silent and listen to the sounds around them.

A taste adventure

Of course a Woodland Tonic wouldn’t be a woodland tonic without a drink or two and there are plenty of tasty infusions that can be made from foraged plants at this time of year. We created a forest infusion from plants like pine needles and ground ivy, and a garden brew from daisies, marjoram and sage. The simplest infusion to make is pine needle tea. Simply collect a couple of handfuls of fresh pine needles and steep in hot water.

Use your hands to learn a new skill

Early in the season, when young willow branches are still supple, it’s a good time to try your hand at willow weaving. On mother’s day, a group of twelve took a walk to forage dead wood (thin, windblown sticks) and green wood (willow canes) and knit them together in a simple weave to create flower baskets. It’s important to use dead wood as well as green to prevent too much shrinking when the wood dries out. Some of the group also gathered flowers and pussy willow buds to decorate their baskets. What do you think?

Take time to look

We rely on our sense of sight so much we sometimes forget to pay attention to it. In April, we took a group of nine people out after dark to see if we could reframe our sense of sight – seeking out the wonderful world of natural biofluorescence! This is the ability of certain organisms to reflect light in a different colour than the one they absorbed, usually a response to Ultraviolet (UV) light and comes in an assortment of bright, weird and wonderful colours.

Create your own nature diary

If you are not able to use a UV torch to seek out biofluorescence, you can still take time to slow down and notice what you see in nature. We ran this family-friendly “looking” activity with children at Thetford’s Polish Heritage Day event and sent families home with their very own DIY nature books to fill with looking-and-noticing projects of their own.

All you need are:

• two pieces of card
• one sheet of paper
• glue
• scissors
• pens/pencils/felt tips

1. If you like, take a short walk in a green space to collect collage materials (such as leaves, petals, feathers and tiny pieces of bark) and/or print off some nature photographs to add to the fun.
2. Create a collage and/or draw on your pieces of card, and give your book a title. These will be your front and back covers.
3. Then, using this diagram from Scholastic fold your piece of paper to form pages.
4. Stick your pieces of card to either end of your pages and voila, your very own nature diary ready to fill in!