The Woods in Spring

The Woods in Spring

free public event

Tuesday 27th May

First flowers and new nests, bumblebees buzzing and beetles trundling: join the Stone and Water team (including Creeping Toad) in Corbar Woods, Buxton, (thank you, Buxton Civic Association!) to explore the excitements of spring

Make your own Spring Wildlife Book and set out into the woods or walk (wander?run? trundle?) up the hill to Corbar Cross, adding your own discoveries to your book as you go!

If you want to find out more about the plants and animals you see, try the Wildlife Trust's Wildlife Explorer

We'll be inviting you to make your own Spring Wildlife Books: if you can't join us on Tuesday, there are suggestions to help you make your own book, here

Where: Corbar Woods, Corbar Rd, Buxton, SK17 6RQ

Finding us: come into the woods at the Corbar Rd entrance and follow the flags up the hill

What3Words: honest.shelved.household....or very near there!

Nearest bus stop: #61 to Cavendish Hospital

• Free event: no booking or tickets required

• Materials provided

• Activity takes about 45 minutes to complete

• Please note: there are no toilet facilities in Corbar Woods!

This is the first of our Celebrating Woodlands events 

with the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust's Community Fund

Lightbulb trees

Under the Lightbulb Trees

the Lost Stories of Glossop

Crystal trees and lightbulb trees

and the Rabbit who has an orchard of Easter Eggs,

Sunburst spiders,

a cat called Red Leicester,

and the place where unicorns go.....

 

Have you ever walked down a street and wondered, "Just what might have happened here?", or looked up at a building and thought "why on earth has it got that statue there?"

 

There is often (always?) a sensible response to questions like that. There are archives to explore, libraries to visit, historical societies to consult, maybe even householders to chat to...and those usually provide those sensible answers. With Lost Stories we were wandering off along uncharted streets and opening long lost story cupboards....Lost? Well, no, as that suggests that at some point, someone knew they were there. 

 

This project wasn't about sensible, historical or accurate answers. It was about sheer unbridled imagination. Encouraging participants to start with what they could see: in a photo, on a map, out of a window or growing next to them in a park and we then invited them to start drawing and talking and letting their imaginations run 

 

In a world where information and misinformation is so readily available, we wanted people to embrace an idea that simply invited them to come and out and play, here, where the cheese vans run, or, here, where the elephants wait, or, here!, where the unicorns play.

 

The Lost Stories of Glossop started with photos from the Glossop Heritage Trust and the Picture the Past archives and invited people to invent buildings, parks, and wild adventures that might have, could have, should have, happened in Glossop, Gamesley and Hadfield (with a quick detour to Chinley)

 

In the current collection, you can hear about those cheese vans, about a buried treasure that can traced by smell (only no-one dares to dig it up). Here is the Pink Palace of Chinley and the misadventures of William Worm.

 

The current collection of stories can be found at:

Lost stories texts

 

Lost Stories was part of the Glossop Hub for Derbyshire Makes, coordinated by High Peak Community Arts

 

and beyond a single reference, no-one knows anything more about Lightbulb trees. Funding is being sought now for an expedition into the Glossop Wilderness to find a grove of these rare plants and, for the first time ever, film them....or possibly find that dragons nest among the lightbulbs and eat camera crews....

And a little bit about Derbyshire Makes: 

Launching in February 2025, Derbyshire Makes shines a spotlight on the industrial history, inspiring landscapes and local communities that make Derbyshire unique. Taking place over three years, this programme of making-related events and activities begins with an annual free festival, from Friday 28th March to Sunday 27th April 2025. Spread across six local town centres in the spring, there will be walks, talks, exhibitions and more. A roving workshop on wheels. And a mass making project all about designing, making and showcasing textile-based creations – led by Alex Murphy, Derbyshire resident and recent contestant on the BBC’s The Great British Sewing Bee.

 

People from across Derbyshire and beyond are all invited to be a part of it: families, young people, adults and retirees. Come with your Nan, or your newborn. Make your mark, make a mess, and make a difference – because Derbyshire Makes needs you to make it special.

 

With many thanks to

Glossop Heritage Trust 

Derbyshire County Council:

Archives

Glossop Library

Gamesley Library

Hadfield Library

High Peak Borough Council

Derbyshire Makes

High Peak Community Arts

 

and all the scribblers and drawers, the cutters and gluers and storymakers and wonderfully crazy people who joined in our workshops!

 

 

Glossop stories

 

an arch, a door, a Narnian lamp-post...

THE LOST STORIES OF GLOSSOP

Derbyshire Makes in the High Peak

The house where…..
The road where the castle wasn’t...
Manor Park Palace...
The Garden Shed witch...
Car Park monsters?
The Partington Theatre Ghost...

Who knows?

Cuthbert's, High Street West

As part of Derbyshire Makes (see below), I am going to be working with people in and around Glossop over March and April. Our challenge is to create The Lost Stories of Glossop: and, no, they don’t need to be anchored in anything other than celebration. We want to remind people that there can be adventures anywhere: that the door down the street that never opens might hold mysteries. That window, that balcony, that chimney pot might all hide stories. Old photos are often so evocative of lives lived and, maybe, forgotten. As well as sheer fantasy, there might also be quiet stories of shoemakers and spinners, "butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers"


Working with High Peak Community Arts (HPCA) and using images from Glossop Heritage Trust for inspiration, our imaginations can be unleashed! We’ll use old images as our starting points, finding wonder in those monochrome memories. There will be free drop in public events with an invitation to create your own stories, make your own little pop-up scenes to illustrate your stories and the chance to add a wonderful building to our giant Lost Stories pop-up where all our stories are being built together into an imaginary Glossop that you can come and visit (and drop yourself as a tiny adventurer into Imagined Glossop) during the Norfolk Square celebrations on 15 and 16th April

As events finalise, details will be published here and on the Creeping Toad and HPCA social media pages...look out for us:

• in local libraries: 
• Gamesley (Monday 7th April): Lost stories of Gamesley
• Glossop (Wednesday 9th April), details: Lost Stories event
• Hadfield (Thursday 10th April) details: Secret Stories event
• in family-learning groups at Gamesley Primary School: 2nd April
• in Manor Park (Sunday 6th April): Manor Park Mysteries

And a little bit about Derbyshire Makes:

Launching in February 2025, Derbyshire Makes shines a spotlight on the industrial history, inspiring landscapes and local communities that make Derbyshire unique. Taking place over three years, this programme of making-related events and activities begins with an annual free festival, from Friday 28th March to Sunday 27th April 2025. Spread across six local town centres in the spring, there will be walks, talks, exhibitions and more. A roving workshop on wheels. And a mass making project all about designing, making and showcasing textile-based creations – led by Alex Murphy, Derbyshire resident and recent contestant on the BBC’s The Great British Sewing Bee.

People from across Derbyshire and beyond are all invited to be a part of it: families, young people, adults and retirees. Come with your Nan, or your newborn. Make your mark, make a mess, and make a difference – because Derbyshire Makes needs you to make it special.



Photos

• Cuthbert's: photograph courtesy of Glossop Heritage Trust
• Other images: G MacLellan

Frogsong in February

 Frogsongs in February

A cold February afternoon and the ponds are, thankfully, silent. A watchful, but frogless, heron took off as I arrived. Friends have seen them taking frogs already this year - from ponds in those warmer garden microclimates "just down the road" but here in this hollow of the hills on the edge of town, the cold still holds them all, frogs, toads and newts, asleep. 

But it IS February and further south and lower down, the frogs have started moving, the Toadwatchers of the Toad Patrols are polishing their boots and filing road closure requests (and getting national headlines!). Here I just hope the cold holds for a few weeks more: too often in recent years, there is a flurry of early wakefulness, and a hasty spawning before March snow or late frosts interrupts everything....

But it IS February and there have been those mornings when I wake up and the world smells full of the promise of frogsong and jellied spawn....

FROGSONG

Gordon MacLellan 

It is March and

This morning held a cold smell of spring

Of frogsong and wonder.

Reflections of blue skies and

Willow trees are

Broken by the weeds that break

The pond’s mirror.

There is movement,

A small turning, splashing

Disturbance,

But there is no-one to see.

The wind across the water

Traces deceptive arrows

And by the far bank,

A bigger movement

Sends a ripple, a wave spreading outwards

But still there is no cause to see,

No culprit to celebrate.

 

The pool settles again,

And me, I rest

Here on the grass, watching.

It is March and

I am still hoping for frogs.

 

NOTES

Frogsong was published as "A Pond in March"in Froglife's Autumn/Winter 2-024 edition of Natterchat

Froglife organises the national Toads on Roads initiative: https://www.froglife.org/what-we-do/toads-on-roads/

storytellings, 2025

treasures to unpack, stories to unfold

Spring stories,

summer tales 2025

Stories in school and other excitements with Creeping Toad,

and ideas for public events!

 celebrating the richness of the changing year, here are stories, puppet-making story-building, pop-up landscapes and boxes of treasures. Outdoors or indoors, the natural world will give us stories and offer inspiration for child-led creativity!

Important dates:

World Book Day 6th March 2025- booked but other dates that week are available
On tour in northern Scotland:

• 18th - 27th March 2025
• 28th April - 9th May 2025 SOLD OUT

NEW TOUR DATES ADDED:

• 23rd - 30th June: Hereford and Worcester

 

other days, other dates, other places!

With stories spinning from the first signs of spring through earth giants and thunder-tigers to summer flowers, here are stories and activities to enchant and inspire.

Gordon MacLellan – Creeping Toad – is one of Britain’s leading environmental art and education workers. Take a look at the Toadblog: Creeping Toad

Drawing on 30 years of professional experience, Gordon’s work blends environmental experience with creativity. “Much of my work uses storytelling and story making but I also make small masks, giant masks, flags, lanterns, pop-up landscapes and create wild and wonderful occasions. We might work outdoors and take ideas from the world around us and our discoveries there. Indoors herds of model mammoths combine with boxes of treasures to give children material to work from”

A day’s visit to your school - or a public event in a library, museum, the park at the end of the road, might include:

storytelling performances: lasting up to 60 minutes for up to 90 children at a time stories out of anything! outdoors or in, we'll use leaves and pine cones, twigs and stones and shells to inspire words, create poems and shape a set of stories never told before (allow 60 minutes for a class session)

NEW WORKSHOP: tools for writing

Taking natural objects, we'll build characters, use landscapes to describe journeys and reveal issues, problems or maybe terrible crimes. This workshop will give children ideas and tools for building stronger imagery into their writing and confidence to experiment and be adventurous with their writing. Most Creeping Toad sessions create stories but this is more focussed on literacy skills

puppets: we can make quick finger puppet animals or adventurers and create instant stories...or we might play with light, colour and shape and create an instant shadow puppet show or make rod and ribbon puppets to wander across a classroom....

from across lands and times: I can select stories to suit times and places: so we have had days of Native American stories, or Egyptian or Greek or Roman, there have been Chinese tales and African animal stories….lots of exciting resources to draw on here, to make new writing vibrant and lively. Castles are popular, too, with boxes of treasures to inspire a new adventure and release a bold princess or courageous dragon

story and book workshops: taking a bit longer (allow 90 minutes for a class) as well as discovering those stories no-one has ever heard before, now we will build those into the books that no-one has ever read before and leave the classroom with a library no-one has ever visited before!

long, low, meandering river pop-up

pop-up storyscapes: allow an hour for a class: gathering ideas, images and words we’ll make quick 3-d landscapes holding the essence of a story in a setting, key characters and the words that set the adventure running

tales of old Scotland: a collection of stories of Highland folklore and Scottish histories, of heroes and sorrows, bravery and the magics of sea, mountain and moor. These can be steered in various directions and we might listen to stories from Viking days or medieval and Stuart stories and even add some Scottish explorers and their adventures and disasters…

your own themes and ideas: or are you exploring a particular theme that you would like to involve some stories in? In recent projects, we have also made talking stone puppets, a giant eagle to hang from a classroom ceiling, prehistoric rockpools, a swarm of shadow dragons, pop-up castles

Charges: £280 a day (if you are a long way from my base in Buxton, Derbyshire, that price might need to increase a little
Fee includes storyteller’s fee, travel and materials. Can be paid on the day or I can invoice you.

Activities can be adapted to suit groups from P1 through to Secondary

For further information: visit the Creeping Toad website at

http://creepingtoad.blogspot.co.uk/

To book:

contact Gordon directly at

creepingtoad@btinternet.com

or by telephone: mobile: 07791 096857

slightly wild "prehistoric mouse"

Northern words and winter

 

snow on the Cairngorms, Nov 2024

Northern words and winter

 

extract from Wave Soaring

I feel very honoured that one of my poems has been included in the latest issue of Northwords Now (Winter 2024/25). NNow features "New writing, fresh from Scotland and the wider North (Sgrìobhadh ùr à Alba agus an Àird a Tuath)"

 

(So, yes: it includes work in English, Gaelic and Scots)

 

Copies are free and the printed copies can be found in bookshops, information centres, cafes and all sorts of places across the Highlands and Islands, or you can download a free copy from the website: 

https://www.northwordsnow.co.uk/Issue45

 

The cover image of Issue 45 is "Wave Soaring" by my lovely friend Alice V Taylor whose work can be seen here: 

https://www.instagram.com/alicev.taylor/?hl=en

 

As we are sort of in the cold now, the full text of "Now we are in the cold" follows. It is part of my latest collection, "Waiting for the Snow" and was first published in Issue 4 of Forget-me-Not Press (2022) "In The Dark":

https://forgetmenotpress.net/in-the-dark

 

Waiting for the Snow can be found on ebay or direct from me

 

 

Now We Are In the Cold. 

 

Now we are in the cold,

Now we are the hunting time,

And the wild geese fly in from the north of the world,

Stitching grey clouds to the hills below

With the long, wavering threads of their flight.

Winter waits,

For the silent, cautious deer,

For the birds to settle in the stubble,

For the hungry fox to take a chance.

 

Now we are in the cold,

Now we are in the hunting time,

And the stillness breathes

In the softest voice of the wind,

Whispering between the trunks, under the branches,

Among summer’s bones in the echoing wood.

Winter waits,

In the cracked ice,

In the wonder of an oak leaf, 

Frosted sharp on the bare ground

 

Now we are in the cold,

Now we are in the dark,

And we are hunted by the wildness,

And a bitter wind through the treetops,

And the cold, brittle silence of a snowy night.

And now, winter waits

For the sigh after the storm, 

For the single candle on the window sill

For my heart settling quiet beside a midnight hearth.

more snow on the Cairngorms, Nov 2024