Article by Pippa Moss.
On Saturday 1st December we were faced
with a very soggy morning for our tree dressing event and while we couldn’t
quite face putting the gazebo up in the rain we didn’t want to cancel.
We would have had to have the
storyteller Rich Sylvester in the bowling green huts but the weather actually
got a bit better and we found a really sheltered spot near the bowling green
with great tree coverage so we just based ourselves right there on the path and
Rich made a dry den in the trees.
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| Dry den for story telling. Photo Pippa |
He did a few story sessions with some groups
of all weather families and people did stop to write lovely messages on our
fabric strips. Many were inspired by a great tree poem Alona had found with
phrases such as ‘stress reliever, shelter for owls etc’.
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| Poem found on Internet. Poet unnamed |
We ended up dressing
the yew tree behind us but also people walked down to the orchard to tie some
up there too.
Of course it wasn’t as busy as usual in
the park but it felt like we were saying thank you to the trees and that felt
right to me - I get a lot from Mayow Park’s trees - there’s many a morning when
I return from a rushed school run and look at the trees and just give a big
sigh of ‘thanks for being here and looking lovely’. But they look a little less
lovely in the winter so dressing them is a good idea!
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| Some decorative messages. Photo Alona |
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| Tree message. Photo Pippa |
Around midday, a talented local dog
walker called Dave came along with his guitar and after a few cups of mulled
wine it felt very normal to be having a fun sing-along next to the Bowling
Green with confused runners trying to dodge through us!
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| Mulled wine time. Photo Pippa |
Dave led a great sing-along on the theme of trees, accompanied by his
guitar. He also included Christmas songs Jingle
Bells and White Christmas
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| Photo: Alona |
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| Photo: Alona |
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| Singing rounded off our tree dressing event Photo: Sarah |
Alona and I also gave an interview to Emma
from CPRE who is filming and interviewing Friends groups. She said it was so
nice to chat to people who were so smiley as they talked about their Friends
group. I can’t think why on a wet Saturday in a park with a mulled wine inside
me and poetic trees words buzzing in my head I wouldn’t be smiling??
