The Hatching 8: inhale the future

The case of the curious trout

Ightenhill Primary School

19th March 2015

the riverbank will shelter the curious trout

Inhale the future
Exhale the past

Life moves quickly

Gotta swim fast

We reach the end of the river for now. The last workshop of the series for the moment. Here at Ightenhill,  Steve and I met our last group and celebrating with our last song and unfolding our last river

The Hatching 2015 has almost fulfilled its mission. This year 10 schools hatched trout eggs as part of the Ribble Rivers Trust's hatch and release scheme for Burnley rivers

My colleague Steve Brown and I have visited 8 of those schools, working with our Trout-keepers to offer a creative take on the hatching process. 

The fingerlings of Ightenhill go into their river next week and those brave little fish will inhale and exhale their way out into the rocks and rapids and racing waters of the Ribble Valley catchment

All our workshops this year have been great fun (they were last year, as well! see The Hatching ) but the Ightenhill trout-keepers seemed to have an extra degree of wonderful wateryness with some delightful fish-dancing to accompany their singing and some beautiful rippling water patterns in their pop-ups

Bossy bigger brothers, I'm not

Sharing my food with you no more

Gonna have to catch it, so I

Cannot be a lazy trout

Magnificent manouvres, we've

Got to dart away

Predators are coming, slyly

Pike will stalk us every day

Think I'm gonna cry now, teardrops

Run like rapids down my face

Reflecting on the river, all these

Memories will not float away

Lyrics are from the Ightenhill Trout Song, a recording of which and pics of rare and exotic fish-dancing will will post here very soon!

Many thanks to the Trout-keeprs, artists, musicians, 

composers and dancers of Ightenhill