Conkers to me always symbolise new beginnings. There is a huge horse chestnut tree in the grounds of my children’s school, and every year as the new term starts in September, so begins the daily hunt for any fallen conkers, and the challenge of breaking them open to see how big they are! When the Get Out More team agreed in September last year that our theme of the year would be a tribute to the wonderful Lost Words book, never could we have imagined what lay ahead of us, and how much more important nature would become over the coming months. Suddenly it’s autumn and we are at conker time again. Someone seems to have put the world in fast forward! (more…)

This month’s Lost Word is ‘Bramble’. For me, it conjures images of hands covered in dark purple stains; Tupperware full of juicy blackberries; family walks to find piles of spiky fortresses, tumbling over walls lining familiar country paths. Some years hot and hazy, a tribute to the long, warm days of summer. Some years losing heat well before they should, meaning jackets were needed to go hunting for the round, purple, plump treasures.

“Bramble is on the march again. Rolling and arching along the hedges, into parks on the city edges”. Robert Macfarlane once again perfectly capturing their essence, bullies of abandoned spaces, no care as to where they grow or how they look, intent on ever-growing and protecting as many juicy blackberries as they possibly can. (more…)

The purple moors are the backdrop to high summer.  I have always lived near moorland and when the dark heather blooms brightly it signals to me those brief weeks when the summer holidays are in full swing and the countryside is in playful mode.  It reminds me of picnics in the Pennines, days out at Dales agricultural shows and bilberry picking on the North York Moors with my grandparents, the inviting sea twinkling in the distance. (more…)

Do you suffer from fern fever?  I have come close a few times.  This fever or craze for ferns began in the Victorian era when fern forays to find rare ferns and even fern stealing were very real! Pteridomania, as it was known, meant people were mad about ferns; collecting them and using their recognisable shape in their homes, artwork and even on their biscuits.  Have you ever noticed the fern pattern on a custard cream? Me neither!  We have the Victorians and their fern fever to thank for this legacy. (more…)

Life has changed so quickly over the past few weeks, but one thing we have still been able to continue are our walks.   All our blog posts this year have been inspired by the work of Robert Macfarlane, specifically his book ‘The Lost Words’, and this month we’re focusing on the humble Bluebell. His line ‘..billows blue so deep, sea-deep’ evokes images of losing yourself to a deep blue ocean, and as you walk through the woods at this time of year, this is exactly how it feels.

We asked a few of our team if they’d like to write a short piece about bluebells so this month’s blog takes the form of four voices, all focusing on these woodland gems. (more…)