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.

Three Times Around The Sun

He had only a few requests really, and they were for lolly pops and a close encounter with a pony.

Luckily he has never had a lolly pop, and won't as long as I'm in charge, so making oaty biscuits and stuffing them on lolly sticks was perfect in his eyes.

As for the pony thang, that was slightly more problematic as I am allergic to horses, so the encounter had to be brief and ideally, away from stables.

We went, with friends, to the 'Big Sheep' park, and he rode and bounced, and played, and stroked lambs, and walked one lap of a school on a pony, and ate biscuit lollies, and watched his older brothers and friends try climbing and mountain boarding, and hunted for tiny foiled chocolate eggs, and played at being a jedi to an unsuspecting family having lunch in the picnic area, and had chips and carrot cake for supper, and a new story book for bed time.

And apparently now, he's six!

Long Evening Shadows

There is something so precious about those last warm rays of sun on a gift of a spring day

Like stolen pleasures when you should be bowing your head to the oncoming night

Don't you know it's the evening, and all the right and proper rituals should be observed

There is supper to be made and cleared, and baths to take and beds to make, curtains to be drawn and stories to be read. What are you doing here?

Well today is a gift, and we are showing it our gratitude.

What use is warm evening sunshine if you don't bask in it?

The night will come and we will eat toast, and bath tomorrow, and read stories in bed with crumbs on our faces and soil between our toes.

And the joyous evening sun will make giants of us, and our long shadows.

Truffles for Mothers Day

If I'm totally honest, I'm a bit of a food tart.

If it's fiddly, or difficult, or lets face it, tarty, it appeals.



I love truffles so much. They are not only fiddly to make and tarty to decorate, they also taste amazing.

The tray above were made for my Mum, and they are honey and almond, dark cherry, crystallised ginger, and chai. And they are all milk free.

These were for my Granny and were made with real cream instead of the soya cream I used in my Mums. Granny got white chocolate cherry, dark ginger, salted caramel, mint, chocolate orange, and honey and almond.

I also made a chili and lime version but it wouldn't harden enough in time to be turned into a truffle. A shame really as this was definitely my favourite flavour, but on the plus side I do have a whole cup full of it in the fridge so hey-ho!

I used a basic recipe and then played with it to achieve the different flavours and textures, but here is the basic theme;

Dark Chocolate Truffles

100g dark chocolate

100ml double cream

25g unsalted butter,

1 tbsp of either honey, maple syrup or golden syrup

Melt everything together in either a double boiler of a heat proof bowl over a pan of hot water. Do this using low heat and have patience or bad things will happen.

When all is melted and blended nicely together, add your chosen flavouring such as chopped cherries, crystallised ginger, orange essence etc, and leave in the fridge overnight to set.

Once set, scoop out tea spoon size blobs and form into rough ball shapes with your fingers. Then cover as you wish. A simple way is to roll them in caster sugar, or drinking chocolate. Cocoa powder works well if you want that really bitter chocolate bite. Or you can roll them in nuts or sprinkles.

To chocolate coat them you need to melt just chocolate as described above, and then drop the truffles quickly into the melted chocolate before removing them onto some grease-proof paper to set.

Once made, they will keep in the fridge for about 10 days..... as if they would ever make it that far!

A Baby Warming Sling

My very good friend, and owner of the Share Harvest Farm I work on, had her 5th baby last year. Olivia is only the second girl in the clan, but that is still two more than I have managed!

On a visit to my house when Olivia was still but a wee scrap of a thing, my friend spotted the sling I made for Freddie, and I offered to make her a girly one for her baby warming present.

In my defence, she did say at the time "oh don't worry about it straight away as she's still a bit little"

So here she is, over a year old, in her finally finished baby warming sling!

What does every girl need to go with a pretty new sling? Smashing new shoes of course.

A Work in Progress, or During......

Ah, last weekend! Finally able to get photo's off my memory card.

I will take an 'after' photo or two, but not until the sun comes out again.

Well I can't very well go to all this trouble and then not show it to you in it's best light now, can I?

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!