It's always satisfying to see happy faces when you hold an event. This weekend was no exception. With herbs to gather from the fields and hedgerows then turn into medicines to take home, theory was turned into confident practice.
Springfield Sanctuary Festival is a relatively small festival, but this means we are able to share time, food and laughter. The weather made things very difficult, but it rained during talks when everyone was in the dry and the showers were short with lots of dryness and an incredible full moon!
For me, a festival is never about one thing. There has to be music and for Chris, there has to be kites. He and Dave Salmon, a fellow member of Sky Symphony display team performed the almost impossible - three kites flown by two people in a synchronised display! Dave was the wizard, not only controlling two kites but also calling the manoevres!
If you would like to see more about the weekend, please go to the Facebook album.
Showing posts with label kites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kites. Show all posts
Monday, 12 September 2011
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Three weeks left!
Only three weeks until the Springfield Sanctuary Herb Festival 9-11 September. Come and join us for two fun-filled days of herbs, kites, stories and songs! Learn how to dye your own wool from natural dyes harvested from the Sanctuary in Kristina's magical dyeing glade. Join the Sanctuary Apprentices to make your own medicine and Denise Fiddaman for herb walks. If you want to gather your own wild foods, Ian will help you identify what is available at this time of year.
Lucinda Warner and Ali English will be furthering our knowledge of using herbs externally and making tonics from local herbs. If you want to know more about propogating herbs, Sam and Louise from Garden Organic will show you how to do it.
Sky Symphony Kite team will be displaying four times over the weekend. Check the online programme to make sure you don't miss their stunning new kite ballet.
The field will be open for camping and to set up stalls from 3pm on Friday and the festival will kick off with an open mic at 7.30pm.
We're trying to keep costs at a minimum, but we'd welcome your donations to help us pay for the loos and cover expenses. Suggested donations are £40 for the weekend and £20 per day. Email sarah at headology dot co do uk for more details and directions to the venue.
Lucinda Warner and Ali English will be furthering our knowledge of using herbs externally and making tonics from local herbs. If you want to know more about propogating herbs, Sam and Louise from Garden Organic will show you how to do it.
Sky Symphony Kite team will be displaying four times over the weekend. Check the online programme to make sure you don't miss their stunning new kite ballet.
The field will be open for camping and to set up stalls from 3pm on Friday and the festival will kick off with an open mic at 7.30pm.
We're trying to keep costs at a minimum, but we'd welcome your donations to help us pay for the loos and cover expenses. Suggested donations are £40 for the weekend and £20 per day. Email sarah at headology dot co do uk for more details and directions to the venue.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Celebrating Herbs Festival: Creating a dream
How do you describe a dream coming true? This is what it feels like when I think back over the first Celebrating Herbs Festival at Springfield Sanctuary. It started as an idea last summer, but as the months progressed and wonderful people agreed to come and talk about herbs in a Cotswold field, the possibility suddenly became a reality.
We knew the weekend could not just include herbs. There needed to be other activities going on for those who might accompany the herb enthusiasts. Sky Symphony kite team kindly offered to come and perform their stunning displays of synchronised kite flying to music throughout the weekend, turning down two requests to fly elsewhere. David Heeks, a budding children's author from Solihull Writers Workshop agreed to tell stories and delighted everyone with his tales and songs. Nik Mohammed brought his Beginners archery setup and nearly everyone tried their luck at hitting the target.
I cannot thank the medical and horticultural herbalists enough for educating us with their chosen subjects. Anne McIntyre was truly wonderful, her calm and gentle presence exuding a wealth and depth of knowledge of her beloved herbs. She inspired us all to use the information she shared and discover more about the herbs she mentioned.
Unfortunately Zoe Hawes was unable to join us because of illness, but the extra time allowed people to go with Denise Fiddaman on a herbwalk around the Sanctuary before returning to the main marquee for a fascinating talk from Davina Wynne-Jones and Saskia Marjoram on the energetic properties of herbs. Davina brought with her some beautiful pictures of her own herb garden in Barnsley near Cirencester.
On Friday and Saturday evenings we enjoyed imprompu concerts performed by our three offspring – Kathryn, Richard and Stephen together with other festival goers. Dave Salmon from Sky Symphony offered some wonderful covers and compositions including my personal favourite, Susie's Lullaby, while Ian and Heather gave us some memorable folk songs and Johnny Cash numbers. Glynn Morgan had us in stitches on Saturday evening with his message from the Darleks and Janey recited a Spike Milligan poem.
The Head trio also entertained festival goers at lunchtime on Saturday and Sunday with a combination of jazz, blues and folk including a number of original songs composed by either Kathryn or Stephen..
Kristina Patmore and her partner, Cameron, transformed the oak glade beyond the summerhouse into a herbal dyeing arena. The hard spring water gave incredible deepness to colours achieved from various dyes. Amongst those Kristina used were onion skins, nettles, dyers greenweed, madder and woad. The wool she dyed had been pre-mordented with alum. She also experimented with two different dyes, achieving a beautiful shade of Lincoln Green on one sample.
Victoria Logue began the Sunday session, with a fascinating talk on herbs for bees followed by a demonstration of seed planting, which taught me a great deal. Two of the Sanctuary Apprentices, Jacki and Kaz described their herbal journey during the following session before we broke for kite displays and a shared lunch. Jenny Jones and Anne Chiotis completed our Sunday afternoon lectures with talks on the immune system and herbs for stress.
The weather proved wonderful all weekend despite a wet and murky start to Saturday morning. Once the sun came through everything dried up and stayed warm.
It is the joy on people's faces which will stay with me. One person said afterwards, “Spending the weekend there, the camping, the talks, the people, the view, was the best tonic I could possibly have had to set me up for the coming weeks.”
Everyone I spoke to talked about the wonderful time they were having, from the views outside, the awesome kite displays to the shared herbal learning. They asked if we would put on the festival next year. Originally we had been thinking of a bi-annual event, but this year was such a success, we shall try to do it again next year if we possibly can.
Hope you enjoy the photos alongside. Many thanks to Jacki for sharing her photos of the weekend.
We knew the weekend could not just include herbs. There needed to be other activities going on for those who might accompany the herb enthusiasts. Sky Symphony kite team kindly offered to come and perform their stunning displays of synchronised kite flying to music throughout the weekend, turning down two requests to fly elsewhere. David Heeks, a budding children's author from Solihull Writers Workshop agreed to tell stories and delighted everyone with his tales and songs. Nik Mohammed brought his Beginners archery setup and nearly everyone tried their luck at hitting the target.
I cannot thank the medical and horticultural herbalists enough for educating us with their chosen subjects. Anne McIntyre was truly wonderful, her calm and gentle presence exuding a wealth and depth of knowledge of her beloved herbs. She inspired us all to use the information she shared and discover more about the herbs she mentioned.
Unfortunately Zoe Hawes was unable to join us because of illness, but the extra time allowed people to go with Denise Fiddaman on a herbwalk around the Sanctuary before returning to the main marquee for a fascinating talk from Davina Wynne-Jones and Saskia Marjoram on the energetic properties of herbs. Davina brought with her some beautiful pictures of her own herb garden in Barnsley near Cirencester.
On Friday and Saturday evenings we enjoyed imprompu concerts performed by our three offspring – Kathryn, Richard and Stephen together with other festival goers. Dave Salmon from Sky Symphony offered some wonderful covers and compositions including my personal favourite, Susie's Lullaby, while Ian and Heather gave us some memorable folk songs and Johnny Cash numbers. Glynn Morgan had us in stitches on Saturday evening with his message from the Darleks and Janey recited a Spike Milligan poem.
The Head trio also entertained festival goers at lunchtime on Saturday and Sunday with a combination of jazz, blues and folk including a number of original songs composed by either Kathryn or Stephen..
Kristina Patmore and her partner, Cameron, transformed the oak glade beyond the summerhouse into a herbal dyeing arena. The hard spring water gave incredible deepness to colours achieved from various dyes. Amongst those Kristina used were onion skins, nettles, dyers greenweed, madder and woad. The wool she dyed had been pre-mordented with alum. She also experimented with two different dyes, achieving a beautiful shade of Lincoln Green on one sample.
Victoria Logue began the Sunday session, with a fascinating talk on herbs for bees followed by a demonstration of seed planting, which taught me a great deal. Two of the Sanctuary Apprentices, Jacki and Kaz described their herbal journey during the following session before we broke for kite displays and a shared lunch. Jenny Jones and Anne Chiotis completed our Sunday afternoon lectures with talks on the immune system and herbs for stress.
The weather proved wonderful all weekend despite a wet and murky start to Saturday morning. Once the sun came through everything dried up and stayed warm.
It is the joy on people's faces which will stay with me. One person said afterwards, “Spending the weekend there, the camping, the talks, the people, the view, was the best tonic I could possibly have had to set me up for the coming weeks.”
Everyone I spoke to talked about the wonderful time they were having, from the views outside, the awesome kite displays to the shared herbal learning. They asked if we would put on the festival next year. Originally we had been thinking of a bi-annual event, but this year was such a success, we shall try to do it again next year if we possibly can.
Hope you enjoy the photos alongside. Many thanks to Jacki for sharing her photos of the weekend.
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Signs of Summer
Everything looks better in sunshine. There is a feeling of lightness associated with brightness compared with the doom and gloom laden cloud cover or rain we know so well. Of course there are exceptions, but I’ll try not to get sidetracked by the beauty of raindrops on Ladies mantle leaves or the sound of a single raindrop hitting a leaf during a shower or the amazing scent present immediately following a thunder storm.
I’ve decided the garden can be officially classed as “wild” since there are buttercups flowering everywhere and long grasses wave from every bed. I quite like grass in fields and closely cut on lawns so I can go barefoot, but have never been attracted to buying grasses to plant in flower beds as all the major garden designers suggest.
As usual, plants in my garden grow where they will. Despite trying to remove all the Spanish bluebells and white michaelmas daisies, there is still a profusion of each. The golden rod is already nearly 4’ tall and I’m determined to do something with the flowers this year. There was a fascinating discussion about its merits on the Susun Weed Forum that I found, so I’m very tempted to try dried, tincture and oil.
The marjoram needs cutting if I’m going to dry it before it flowers, as does the lemon balm, so I just hope the forecast of heavy rain for tomorrow is wrong. I love fresh marjoram and then forget about it completely during the winter.
The parsley is growing in great profusion too, so I decided to make up a fresh salad dressing last night using a basic Good Housekeeping recipe – 2 parts olive oil, one part vinegar (sage cider vinegar) 1/3 tsp mustard powder, 1 tsp sugar and about two large handfuls of marjoram and parsley with half a dozen broad leaf thyme sprigs and one rosemary sprig. I whizzed up the herbs in the coffee grinder before adding them to the oil and vinegar mixture, then whisked everything together. It tasted good and hopefully will improve with age.
The first valerian flower was out yesterday although I didn’t smell any scent. I really like valerian, but have never used it. Non Shaw has a recipe for a “deep sleep potion” which I’d love to try, even though I rarely need anything. My problem is not falling asleep, but going to bed – there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I want!
Coming home to an empty house yesterday, I actually managed to make myself a herb tea with lemon balm and cleavers. Someone was saying how mature cleavers were so much stronger than the younger ones. I gathered some thick stems and wrapped them up into a parcel before breaking them into pieces in the teapot. The pea-smell was unmistakable – something I’d not noticed before. The tea also had a sweet aftertaste on the back of my tongue – almost like an artificial sweetener!
The wild strawberries are flowering in profusion and there are real strawberries on the large strawberry plants. I haven’t grown strawberries since before the children were born, so we shall see who gets them first – us or the slugs! I meant to go and look at the gooseberries, red currants and black currents before I went in, but forgot.
In my last posting, I mentioned having time to spare over the weekend while we were away at the Exmouth Kite Festival. I really shouldn’t say things like that. I always forget how much time cooking and making cups of tea take up – not to mention having to wash out Chris’ kite gear because he slipped and fell in the mud on Saturday morning due to torrential rain the previous night!
The weekend kite displays were stunning, especially when Sky Symphony got together with the Airheads producing a ten-man synchronised team. Airheads’ leader, Peter Taylor, makes Sky Symphony's kites including their night kites. It was a wonderful weekend for Sky Symphony as all six of the team were present - the first time for a public display.
Roy got to participate in a scratch “revolution” team for the first time and did really well. Revolutions are 4 string kites, as opposed to the two string ones Sky Symphony use for team displays which go by the names of “T2s” and "absolute zeros". They have three different sets of kites depending on the wind speed and can fly when many other kite teams can’t. On Saturday, Dave and Alan Bill performed a very moving duet with tails on their kites, producing perfect double helixes in the afternoon sky.
I did manage to spend a few moments adding to my latest story, “The Bear and the Ivy Lady”. The sunset over the hills above Exmouth estuary on the Friday evening was particularly beautiful and found its way into the story.
There are two sunsets I remember fondly – the first over the Pacific Ocean viewed from the clifftop apartment in Lincoln City, Oregon, with my friend, Sorcha and the other was on the cliffs at Lands End with hundreds of other visitors waiting for the firework display to begin. We watched in silence and when the sun finally dipped below the horizon, everyone clapped. It was a truly magical moment and now I have another to add to my collection of sunset memories.
I’ve decided the garden can be officially classed as “wild” since there are buttercups flowering everywhere and long grasses wave from every bed. I quite like grass in fields and closely cut on lawns so I can go barefoot, but have never been attracted to buying grasses to plant in flower beds as all the major garden designers suggest.
As usual, plants in my garden grow where they will. Despite trying to remove all the Spanish bluebells and white michaelmas daisies, there is still a profusion of each. The golden rod is already nearly 4’ tall and I’m determined to do something with the flowers this year. There was a fascinating discussion about its merits on the Susun Weed Forum that I found, so I’m very tempted to try dried, tincture and oil.
The marjoram needs cutting if I’m going to dry it before it flowers, as does the lemon balm, so I just hope the forecast of heavy rain for tomorrow is wrong. I love fresh marjoram and then forget about it completely during the winter.
The parsley is growing in great profusion too, so I decided to make up a fresh salad dressing last night using a basic Good Housekeeping recipe – 2 parts olive oil, one part vinegar (sage cider vinegar) 1/3 tsp mustard powder, 1 tsp sugar and about two large handfuls of marjoram and parsley with half a dozen broad leaf thyme sprigs and one rosemary sprig. I whizzed up the herbs in the coffee grinder before adding them to the oil and vinegar mixture, then whisked everything together. It tasted good and hopefully will improve with age.
The first valerian flower was out yesterday although I didn’t smell any scent. I really like valerian, but have never used it. Non Shaw has a recipe for a “deep sleep potion” which I’d love to try, even though I rarely need anything. My problem is not falling asleep, but going to bed – there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I want!
Coming home to an empty house yesterday, I actually managed to make myself a herb tea with lemon balm and cleavers. Someone was saying how mature cleavers were so much stronger than the younger ones. I gathered some thick stems and wrapped them up into a parcel before breaking them into pieces in the teapot. The pea-smell was unmistakable – something I’d not noticed before. The tea also had a sweet aftertaste on the back of my tongue – almost like an artificial sweetener!
The wild strawberries are flowering in profusion and there are real strawberries on the large strawberry plants. I haven’t grown strawberries since before the children were born, so we shall see who gets them first – us or the slugs! I meant to go and look at the gooseberries, red currants and black currents before I went in, but forgot.
In my last posting, I mentioned having time to spare over the weekend while we were away at the Exmouth Kite Festival. I really shouldn’t say things like that. I always forget how much time cooking and making cups of tea take up – not to mention having to wash out Chris’ kite gear because he slipped and fell in the mud on Saturday morning due to torrential rain the previous night!
The weekend kite displays were stunning, especially when Sky Symphony got together with the Airheads producing a ten-man synchronised team. Airheads’ leader, Peter Taylor, makes Sky Symphony's kites including their night kites. It was a wonderful weekend for Sky Symphony as all six of the team were present - the first time for a public display.
Roy got to participate in a scratch “revolution” team for the first time and did really well. Revolutions are 4 string kites, as opposed to the two string ones Sky Symphony use for team displays which go by the names of “T2s” and "absolute zeros". They have three different sets of kites depending on the wind speed and can fly when many other kite teams can’t. On Saturday, Dave and Alan Bill performed a very moving duet with tails on their kites, producing perfect double helixes in the afternoon sky.
I did manage to spend a few moments adding to my latest story, “The Bear and the Ivy Lady”. The sunset over the hills above Exmouth estuary on the Friday evening was particularly beautiful and found its way into the story.
There are two sunsets I remember fondly – the first over the Pacific Ocean viewed from the clifftop apartment in Lincoln City, Oregon, with my friend, Sorcha and the other was on the cliffs at Lands End with hundreds of other visitors waiting for the firework display to begin. We watched in silence and when the sun finally dipped below the horizon, everyone clapped. It was a truly magical moment and now I have another to add to my collection of sunset memories.
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