*Friluftsliv; a handy word meaning open-air living, capturing the Scandinavian approach to living life in harmony in nature.

It’s a warm spring day and I’m following a group of pensioners on a hike through the forest in Sandvika, near Oslo.  I can hear robins and a nuthatch singing noisily overhead and blue and white wood anenomes are blooming on the forest floor.  I have been invited to join the Demmensturgruppe (dementia walking group) organised by Bærum Frivillgsentral, a volunteering organisation for the local municipality.  Having met in town and dropped off by a minibus taxi at the edge of the woods, the group are putting a good foot down and walking with purpose.  Apart from the occassional pause to look at the flowers, watch running deer or chat to hikers coming the other way, the group keep up a good pace until the official lunch stop outside a hytte (cabin).  There is a large firepit we could use, but its warm today, so not required.  Suitably sustained with coffee, sandwiches and Kwik Lunsj, (like a Kit Kat, its an essential part of the hiking experience in Norway, I am told!), we carry on through the woods and farmland to complete an impressive 6.5k.  Many of the group are living with dementia, others are volunteers.  Its not clear who is who, and everyone is carrying the same branded rucksacks, so we’re all part of one big friendly group. (more…)

*Friluftsliv; a handy word meaning open-air living, capturing the Scandinavian approach to living life in harmony in nature.

The first part of my Churchill Fellowship trip, in which I am seeking to understand how to enable more nature connection for older people, has been spent in Amsterdam, a stop off on my train journey up to Norway. A few months ago, a colleague showed me an magazine article from the National Trust magazine about their Damsons group running from their property Peckover House, inspired by the Odensehuis model.   Described as a meeting place for people living with dementia and their family and carers, group members take an active role in how the group is managed. Odense is in Denmark, but there are Odensehuis across the Netherlands, so I approached a few in Amsterdam to see if I could visit and find out more. I received replies from Maartje and Hans, who work at Odensehuis in two very different parts of the city. (more…)

*Friluftsliv; a handy word meaning open-air living, capturing the Scandinavian approach to living life in harmony in nature.

There is less than a week to go until I set off on my Churchill Fellowship trip to Norway. My trains and ferries are booked, my itinerary is planned and my diary is nearly full with a list of visits and appointments with organisations doing innovative work in my area of study.  All that is left for me to do is to pack my bags and say goodbye to colleagues, friends and family.  But before I do, I need to explain why I’m going.  Afterall, two months is a long time to disappear, leaving my business and family to manage without me ‘on a free holiday’, as at least one person has described it, (its not)!

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Our Holiday Forest School programme is a mainstay of the school holidays at Get Out More. We’ve been running programmes in all seasons in an all outdoor setting since 2010, so we’ve had plenty of questions about how it works and how we keep children safe. Which is why we have compiled a collection of the most frequently asked questions and put them together in this blog post!

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Have you ever wondered about the benefits of walking and cycling? I love cycling, but I  don’t often stop to think about it. I do know that I feel calmer, happier and less stressed when cycling to work compared with sitting in my car in traffic jams! Walking and cycling are the perfect way to fit exercise into your daily routine, cheaper than the gym and replacing just one journey a week by active travel (walking or cycling) can reduce personal CO2 emissions and help to tackle the climate crisis.

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For this year’s blog we decided that following on from the COP 26 in October last year in Glasgow that we would focus on environmental actions that we can all take in our every day lives to do our bit towards reducing our impact on the environment. Whether that is increasing biodiversity in our gardens by planting flowers for pollinators, reducing our reliance on single use plastics or making more journeys by bike or on foot to reduce CO2 emissions. Each month we will focus on a different action. To begin the year, we’re starting off with doing our bit to reduce the amount of litter that is polluting the environment. (more…)

“Robin” by pauljeffery59

‘A crow in a crowd is a rook and a rook on its own is a crow’

After many conversations in our house about why the birds weren’t frequenting the bird feeders in our garden, this past week has allowed us to get back on ‘bird track’.  There has been a lot to notice.  Tuesday saw the first visitor to the feeder – a robin.  It was strange to see its cautious movements around the garden before it dared to make a dash for one rushed mouthful of seeds; hardly even stilling its wings before flying off again to the safety of the hedge.

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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…)

We find ourselves in a very strange time, with the world locking down in the mist of a global pandemic. Robert Macfarlanes book ‘The Lost Words’ is a perfect resource for reminding ourselves of the beauty in the world around us.  In our blog, we are focusing on one word a month and this April, we are featuring the beautiful Lark, a bird resident throughout the UK, with the most beautiful song, which uniquely can be heard whilst it flies high in the sky.  You can find out more about this bird, and hear its song on the RSPB website  (more…)

When is the last time you really looked at a dandelion? Ubiquitous in urban and rural settings alike, you can find them nosily popping out of dry-stone walls, scattered amongst farmers fields and clutching onto pavements lining our town centres.  There aren’t many places untouched by their resilient, yellow faces yet; they are often overlooked completely or pulled out before they take over perfectly mowed garden lawns. Take a closer look, find out a bit more about them and you might just be inclined to welcome the next one to pop up into your garden. (more…)