tai chi, and stuff

Here is Dave with three of the Peaceful posse doing tai chi at this afternoon's workshop. It was not very well attended, but thankfully Gill managed to swell the numbers with four of hers. It was lovely to see all of them, and they've all grown (not Gill, but it was lovely to chat with her in person.) It was all lovely and chilled out, really, or is that my hearing loss making everything seem so quiet?

Dave did some animal movements, with sound effects, which was outside of my comfort zone (a bit like John Higginson's workshop), like, a bit too freeform, and, well, not my usual thing, really. But the kids really got into it- Dave was right- especially Freddie and Fergus. And we did the Swimming Dragon quigong, which I like, but we didn't do all of it. (O, I really missed last night's class, but got as far as Mel's with a clingy Freddie and gave up and drank some cider instead). After a break we did a bit of form, which a few kids actually tried to join into for a bit. They had drifted in and out of the tai chi. I think it's a bit slow for them, but I think some kids do get into doing taichi.

Afterwards I took my lot to the park, but Dave was too tired and ratty to cope with the playpark, (well, so was I, but hey, I do it anyway, and I just wanted someone to sit with for five minutes, grrrr). Thankfully Charlotte was there, but she wasn't feeling too good either, so I decided to go in search of company at the fleamarket, but it had all but finished. So I arranged to meet Dawn at Callis, as Rowan wanted friends over to play. So we ended up staying there till quite late in the evening. They went in the huge paddling pool, in the rowing boat, and picked fruit with Guy. It was lovely sitting there chatting with friends while the children ran around gleefully- they just love it there, they can be so free.

While we were picking raspberries there was the distant sound of a child crying, which my mummy-radar had just not picked up, being quite deaf at the moment. Guy heard it first and, realising that it was coming from the direction of the swamp, heroicly waded right across the swamp, while I ran round the edge of it. He wasn't in it, but was stuck. Fergus and Rowan had "lost him" in the long grass, but hadn't thought to tell anybody. Well, he was quite unphased when he got back to the raspberries, and continued to try to get me to leave him alone. On the way to the fruit bushes he had said "where are the rest of the kids? Stop following me". It's nice that he now wants to go off with the other kids and they do look after him (usually!). When I was watching my three running about together before, from inside of Dawn's boat, I imagined them as three Victorian orphans out of a novel- which one? not sure.

The kids got into making and burning smudge bundles out of aromatic herb twigs to ward off the midges. They're quite good, actually.

It was when I saw Freddie and Jago in the rowing boat, (in lifejackets) with Martin that I realised that I must have put my camera down earlier. Thankfully it was still on the windowsill in the Arts Centre when I called in on the way back home.