Seven Times Around The Sun

Jacks birthday started with sleep over friends, and presents at breakfast, and progressed to the Pancake Breakfast with even more friends at Tapeley in aid of Two Rivers.

Jack and friends choosing their fillings.

Sun streaming through the barn windows.

The dedicated kitchen staff.

And this, oh this, this is my first ever cuddle with this long anticipated and much thought about little chap. My friends third child, and first boy, little Ocean.

Details of his amazing birth on the Birthwise blog.

Hurt Yurt

The gale force winds of last week claimed one very sorry looking victim on the Two Rivers site.

Our beautiful yurt, and the children's classroom, had its roof blown in by the huge gale. It was a very sad sight.

We raced the rain to untangle and untie all the ropes and straps that held the canvas in place, pack the whole thing down and get it somewhere safe and dry.

We rescued all the equipment and furniture, collapsed the yurt, and covered the base with tarpaulin.

The yurt is being stored until the worst of the weather has passed, and we have kindly been given the use of the barn at Tapeley Park to run the Kindergarten from for the next couple of months.

Incredibly the only actual damage was one of the central posts that support the wheel had been broken. The post was rushed off site and thanks to Grant of Ironshirt is now all fixed and awaiting a future yurt raising

The First Few Days - The Quay

At the very beginning of this new year anything seems possible. Rules seem to have been shaken and in some cases re-written by the shift into 2012. These first tentative steps into these fresh new days are strange. I am trying to flow with the feelings of change and making sure we just keep heading wherever it's taking us. 

This was Sunday morning. The quay was draped in mist and the storms had left the higher reaches of the beach strewn with seaweed and driftwood, whilst the sand looked as though it had been polished flat. We explored it with friends, finding empty shark egg cases and lumps of timber for the fire. It felt wild, elemental and perfect down there.

Photos courtesy of Frankie from Bluebells and Two Rivers

Two Rivers Open Day

Two Rivers Steiner Inspired Kindergarten opened it's gates the weekend before last.

The days leading up to the big day were soggy to say the least, and there were still plenty of jobs that needed doing.

My time has had so many other demands on it of late that I have hardly stepped foot on site over the last few months. I was amazed and impressed by how much had been achieved since my last visit. To my friends who had been working there constantly the site was a visual list of unfinished jobs and unpurchased materials, but to my eyes it just looked beautiful.

We did have a few things that really needed finishing before the Open Day though, like the compost loo's for instance.

The entrance and porch, leading through to the yurt that is the main classroom.

The day itself was very well attended, with lots of people visiting who had had no previous involvement with the project. We sold tea and cakes, and had craft activities, and I was hair wrapping all afternoon.

The wood burner was lit, and the wind turned a little chillier in the afternoon so the yurt became the place to be.

I hair wrapped by the fire and listened to the gently bubbling conversation amongst the parents.



It was a lovely, unhurried, gentle day.The sort of a day that starts as one thing and then effortlessly flows into others.

I would have taken more photos, but there was a lot of tea to be served and people to talk to and hair to wrap. Next time.

A Talk on Waldorf Education

A little while ago now we arranged for Kevin Avison, an influential member of the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, to come to North Devon and give an introductory talk on Steiner Waldorf education,

We booked the Barn at Tapely as the venue, as we felt that it would be good to organise the talk as near as possible to the school site.

We set the hall up in the morning. We had our craft stall, a table of info and prospectuses, and an information display full of photos of what we had been up to so far.

Kevin arrived late morning and we had a good meeting with him, discussing what we were doing and asking him a whole plethora of questions about other Steiner Waldorf set ups and his own experiences.

We had put up posters around and about in both Barnstaple and Bideford, but we had all been so busy with the works on site that we all felt the whole thing was a bit rushed and underprepared, so we really had no idea if anyone would turn up.

We set up the cafe area in the bar, adjacent to the main hall, and put up signs to direct people through so they would hopefully buy tea and cakes on their way in. I stood by the door to take the entrance fee of £2, and we waited for 2 o'clock to roll around.

The first few people started to wander in at about 1.45, and they didn't stop. 

By about 2.15 I had to leave admissions to someone else and go and introduce Kevin so the talk could start. 

It was packed, standing room only, and only about 3 people had previously been involved with Bluebells or the Two Rivers project. In fact, the vast majority had been to one or other of my classes which left me with a warm glowy feeling inside! 

The talk went really well. I learnt a ton of stuff, and loved standing at the back and watching every ones reactions to what was being said.

And I know, I know, that all this interest doesn't necessarily translate into involvement with the school, or children enrolled, but it's a start.

Oh yes, it's a good start.

A Long Time Coming

This post has been a long time coming!

Several years ago now, friends of mine set up the Bluebell Steiner Parent and Child Group in Barnstaple for pre-school children and their families. The group has gone from strength to strength, and over a year ago we started to look for somewhere to take the next step and set up a Steiner Waldorf school.

We explored so many different ways of approaching it. We, unlike may groups of parents who start these sorts of projects, are not well off. None of us had a convenient second home we could sell, or an inheritance we could invest. In fact, the most we could really do was make and bake to try to raise money through fundraising events.

We heard of a Kindergaten that was being run from a yurt in Cornwall, and that seemed to offer a far more realistic way of getting our own school off the ground. A second hand yurt was bought, and we began the endless and seemingly fruitless task of finding a suitable place to site it. It really did seem as though all roads were dead ends. Ideas that seemed really promising quickly fell on their faces, and all avenues seemed to lead to cul-de-sac's.

Until finally, one avenue didn't.

Welcome to the Two Rivers Steiner School!

We have been offered the use of an area of mixed deciduous and pine woodland at the back of Tapely Park, a large stately home that overlooks the estuary at Bideford. The location is brilliant as Bideford is within reasonable reach of Hartland where the Small School is located, and we have always felt that the Small School was the obvious next step for children leaving the school at 11.

We have been hard at work clearing the site, we have had a digger in to clear all the pine tree stumps and dig the compost loos, we have built the base for the yurt and are making good progress on the fencing. There has been so very much work and effort gone in already, and we still have a very long way to go, but it is really truly, earth and wood, sweat and mud, plans and fruition, happening!