The Perfect Pond

Hoorah for newts and all the creeping cousins!

The Perfect Pond

a new story book from Froglife

Do you need a last minute present?

maybe you'd like to offer someone a moment of creeping delight

 – or you could visit the Froglife shop for some hopping excitements

this is not a newt

The magnificent charity Froglife * has just produced a little book about the adventures of a Great Crested Newt heading out to find a new pond

It’s a bit of a cop-out of a blog but I’m going to quote from the Froglife Press Release

A newt went down to the pond one night…

What did he find?

Who did he meet?

and this is a Malawian frog

Let Froglife take you on a journey with our amphibian friend using this beautifully illustrated new book. The Perfect Pond is a children’s story with a difference. Set in the British countryside with native wildlife characters, the book introduces children to their natural heritage and encourages discussion about UK species and their habitats, ecology and conservation.

Author, Froglife’s Conservation Youth Worker, Rebecca Neal said “There are just not enough children’s stories about wildlife in our own backyard. Newts are as cool as crocodiles, or maybe I’m just biased!”

Froglife will be using the book when working with primary schools. It is aimed at Key Stage 1 children aged five to seven, but can be enjoyed by younger and older children alike. At the back of the book is information about the different characters, definitions, basic information about why amphibians and reptiles are under threat, and suggestions of things you could do to help.

Jenny Leon, Froglife’s Learning Coordinator said “This is not just a great story, it actually stimulates real discussion. If we care about the environment, we need to be having these conversations with the children in our lives.”

and this is an African puddle-frog...

To buy the book, and exclusive Christmas cards using some of the illustrations, please visit Froglife’s online shop froglife.org/shop. All profits will fund Froglife’s work looking after native amphibians and reptiles, and helping people learn about and enjoy our wildlife. You can also download some fantastic activity sheets linked to the story at froglife.org/learning-zone.

Go for it, hopping all the way! (that last comment's from me)

* I may be a Trustee but I am not at all biassed....or not very much...

You're going to have to find your own newts!

The Last of the Wonders

The Last of the Wonders

Wednesday 23^rd December

10am – 1pm

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

have you stared into ancient forests?

Have you visited the Wonders before?

If not, why not make this your first visit! If you have wandered through the galleries before, join us for a last visit before the Exhibition is closed for a shakedown and a refit.

have you growled with the Bear?

What do you like? 

What have you relished over the years? 

Or what has made your skin creep!  

or seen the hungry hyena?

The bear and the beasts and the bones? 

A grinning mermaid in a glass case? 

A delicate Blue John window. 

Memories of plague and the Eyam Cross. 

Roman treasures and the wonder of polished black Ashford Marble?

Join us for a morning of tales and memories

Listen to old tales from the Peaks.

Share your own stories with us, draw a card to keep and leave us notes, comments and pictures in our “Book of the Wonders”. 

• The event is free and materials are provided
• No booking needed, just drop by and join in - but give yourself at least 30 minutes to get things done
• Children of 7 and under should bring a grown-up with them so we can scare the adults with the Bear....
• Buxton Museum, Terrace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6DA
• find out more about the Collections in the Landscape project here

• 
  

  wave! the Mermaid is watching!

Collections in the Landscape

Collections in the Landscape

Out of the thrilling store-rooms of the Museum where fossils rest in long trays and years of prints and paintings hang in sliding racks and a stray toad-man could be lost for centuries (I know. I tried. They found me.), Buxton Museum and Art Gallery is unfolding a new project that will offer a whole new set of ways of accessing

Dovedale

the museum from here, there and anywhere and will take those wonderful collections back out into the hills and caves and dales they came from.

A quote from the Collections in the Landscape blog

“Buxton Museum and Art Gallery is delighted to have been awarded a £869,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant to deliver Collections in the Landscape. The project will bring bring context and collections together to engage more people with their heritage. Our aims are:

• To improve public access to museum collections through development of virtual resources.
• To improve public access to museum collections through the redevelopment of the principle gallery, Wonders of the Peak.
• Enable schools and researcher to more effectively access and engage with heritage.
• Link collections and knowledge through a network of partnerships and volunteer programmes.
• To develop and share curatorial skills, ethical practice and digital media skills with staff, visitors, non-visitors and volunteers.”

Visit the Collections blog to find out more

Just now, what I want to say is that I’ve been asked to coordinate a series of events over the next 18 months or so that will take the CITL ideas and introduce them to people across the Peak District in engaging, creative and exciting ways

It’s great! I’m sidetracking myself into delighted flights of fancy and reluctantly deciding that we can’t really revisit plague and the medieval punishments of the Royal Forest of the Peak and acknowledging that dipping irritating visitors into petrifying wells might be fun but isn’t really “visitor friendly”.

So we are distilling ideas down to an ongoing set of excitements. I’m gathering a team of artist, photographers, ancient technology specialists and trouble-makers (Oo! Another excuse for those medieval punishments!) to help me and we’ll set a series of public events, schools sessions and more intensive learning days in motion.  I’ll post events as they come up but to whet appetites, over the next 3 months there will be

         The Last of the Wonders: 23^rd December 10 – 1pm in the Museum: telling tales of the Peaks and inviting visitors to share their stories of the exhibition, drawing their own cards to keep and leaving us notes, comments and stories in our “Book of the Wonders”. A final event for this version of the display before it is redesigned and reinvigorated

         Marvelous Minerals: February 2016: a day of crystals and colour, looking at the mineral worlds of the peaks and the secrets that grow so slowly and reveal such spectacular colours in our caves and tunnels and long, slow-dripped caverns

        

Bone Detectives: March, 2016, for British Science Week: inviting visitors to discover the secrets of the skulls and spruce up their natural history skills: looking at shapes and structures and adaptations in skulls and discovering how these give us clues about the animals and their lives even if we are not sure what the animal might have been. Our friends in local group Stone and Water have received a Science Week grant towards this event so we can do more! Play with more bones, Admire more skulls! There will be a public event, a workshop for adults during the week and an evening visit to a group of scouts, guides, brownies – or similar – we’re taking offers if any local groups see this!

More details of all of these and the next set will be posted very shortly!

exciting wintry events

A cold season of creative wildness

family events in December 2015

 Winter comes rolling in with our first snow here in Buxton and as the hills are beautifully white and the trees black as old bones, here at Creeping Toad we are gearing up for some lovely December excitements!

4 events are planned – details for all follow

Sunday 13^th December, at the Green ManGallery

Hardwick Square South, Buxton

10.30 – 12: Wintry Landscapes, 10 - 1

4.00 -5.30pm Stories for a Winter Afternoon, 4 – 5.30

Sunday 20^th December , Mystery and Mulled Wine, stories for grown-ups,  at the Green ManGallery, Hardwick Square South, Buxton, 7pm – 9 (ish)

Wednesday 23^rd December, The Last of the Wonders, at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, 10 – 1

The Last of the Wonders: an event marking the closure (for refurbishment) of the delicious Wonders of the Peak exhibition in the museum. Details will follow but activities will include storytelling to suit the different rooms of the exhibition and the chance to draw your own postcards of favourite pieces of the display – the Bear? The bones? The mermaid? The Blue John window? And to leave us postcard messages of what you like best – or least – of the display

MORE DETAILS

Wintry Landscapes

Sunday 13^th December

10.30 – 12.00

Add an individual touch to your festive decorations!

Join me for a session building some exquisite Midwinter creations

We might

• capture a scatter of presents, or leaves, feathers and colours, or even a tiny castle on a bottle lantern
• play with card and colour, pictures and trees building a pop-up world of snowmen and frozen pools, of lost castles among dark mountains, of reindeer flying through a starry sky….

Get carried away with a display lantern of trees and palaces, rivers and bridges and children iceskating into an adventure

During the session, we will make

• a bottle lantern
• at least one small pop-up card
• a larger pop-up landscape
• maybe a round display lantern

This will be a deliciously messy, delightfully creative session, giving you the chance to learn quick techniques and go away with your own wintry landscapes and the skills to make more

Places are limited, you need to book a ticket

Cost: £6.00 per person (supporting grown-ups go free)

Activities suitable for 5 years and over, 7s and under need to bring their own grow-up with them

Materials provided (but if you’d like to bring a washed, empty plastic bottle that could add to the mix (500 ml - 2l are best)

Phone 01298 937375

email hello@thegreenmangallery.com or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.

4.00 - 5.30pm Stories for a Winter Afternoon

Cheerfully chilly stories of the first Christmas Tree, the wren and the robin, the secrets of Christmas feasts and work with me to mix natural materials, wonderful treasures and strange characters into the first telling of the Buxton Winter Tale

Places are limited, you need to book a ticket

Cost: £6.00 per person (supporting grown-ups go free)

Stories suitable for 5 years and over (and maybe younger), 7s and under need to bring their own grow-up with them

Phone 01298 937375

email hello@thegreenmangallery.com or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.

Sunday 20^th December , at the Green Man Gallery

Hardwick Square South, Buxton

Mystery and Mulled Wine 7pm – 9 (ish)

The Winter Solstice brings seasonal storytelling for grown-ups by Gordon MacLellan and Helen Appleton.
From cheerful trolls to deep winter cold, from the downright silliness of a Trickster tale to the rich images of an old English adventure, join Helen and Gordon for an atmospheric evening to get your Midwinter off to a warming start

Tickets: £7.50 (with a free glass of mulled wine) Further refreshments available

Phone 01298 937375

email hello@thegreenmangallery.com or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.

This is a storytelling session for an adult audience which doesn’t mean the stories will be particularly racy or outrageous but themes and images may not suit a younger audience. There is a storytelling session at The Green Man for families on December 13th.

 

Wednesday 23^rd December, The Last of the Wonders, at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, 10 – 1,

The Last of the Wonders: an event marking the closure (for refurbishment) of the delightful Wonders of the Peak exhibition in the museum. Activities will include storytelling to suit the different rooms of the exhibition and the chance to draw your own postcards of favourite pieces of the display – the Bear? The bones? The mermaid? The Blue John window? And to leave us postcard messages of what you like best – or least – of the display

This event is free, just drop by and join in!

A horse in the darkness

Buxton Winter Lights Celebration

21st November 2015

After several weeks of nice warm workshops, our Project eARTh lanterns were cast into the wild of a winter evening. After a day of rain and sleet and stormy winds, our bold lantern-makers assembled and wrapped and welly-booted we squelched and muttered our way into setting up our beautiful creations....

The lantern procession is the highpoint (at least for some of us!) of the Winter Lights Celebration with its funfair and market and delicious food and drink stalls. Oh, and its rain and hail and, by the next morning, snow!  Winter!

There were far more lanterns and people than suggested by these pictures. I've concentrated on the lanterns made during the Project eARTh workshops, visit  Buxton Sparkles  for pictures of the magnificent wider event. 

drummers to lead us...

 

...Ice Queen and a Snow King to lead us

and then.....

and at the end...

 Thanks to all our artists from the Buxton Project eARTh group!

Mystery and mulled wine storytelling

Mystery And Mulled Wine

An evening of sinister stories and marvellous tales

with Helen Appleton and Gordon MacLellan

Sunday 20th December 2015

7pm

From cheerful trolls to deep winter cold, from the downright silliness of a Trickster tale to the rich images of an old English adventure, join Helen and Gordon for an atmospheric evening to get your Midwinter off to a warming start

Tickets: £7.50 (with a free glass of mulled wine)
Further refreshments available

This is a storytelling session for an adult audience which doesn’t mean we’ll do particularly racy or outrageous stories but themes and images may not suit a younger audience. There is a storytelling session for families on December 13th!

Book a ticket
Phone 01298 937375
email: hello@thegreenmangallery.com
or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.

Green Man Gallery
Hardwick Hall, 
Hardwick Square South
Buxton, SK17 6PY

Lights a'growin', owls a'watchin'

Lights a'growin', owls a'watchin'

lanterns with Project eARTh in New Mills

After the damp delights of the Buxton Winter celebration (see It's a Horse!, finale pics to follow very shortly), the New Mills Project eARTh group are making their own set of lanterns for a twilight installation on the Hadfield Lantern Parade

Designs and ideas moved around - I was in favour of a completely inappropriate fleet of pirate ships for no reason other than i really like making lantern-ships. Common sense prevailed, however, and we are making a night sky to light the Parade on its way.

"Common sense" didn't necessarily last very long when the Archangel Gabriel put in an appearance alongside a rather large comet and a cheerfully round owl....

careful constructions

delightfully messy

a planet taking shape

and here is that watchful owl....

December excitements!

Events for the edge of winter

Buxton

December 2015

 

Winter comes rolling in with our first snow here in Buxton and as the hills are beautifully white and the trees black as old bones, here at Creeping Toad we are gearing up for some lovely December excitements!

I will post each event separately as details are finalised

can we tempt you to a pop-up tree?

3 events are planned

Sunday 13^th December, 
 at the Green Man Gallery

Hardwick Square South, Buxton, SK17 6PY

a) 10.30 – 12: Wintry Landscapes – details below

b) late afternoon: we’re planning some drop-in story sessions – details to follow

 Wednesday 23rd December 
at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

Terrace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6DA

The Last of the Wonders: an event marking the closure (for refurbishment) of the delicious Wonders of the Peak exhibition in the museum. Details will follow but activities will include storytelling to suit the different rooms of the exhibition and the chance to draw your own postcards of favourite pieces of the display – the Bear? The bones? The mermaid? The Blue John window? And to leave us postcard messages of what you like best – or least – of the display

Sunday 20^th December , at the Green Man Gallery

Hardwick Square South, Buxton

Mystery and Mulled Wine 7pm – 9 (ish)

An evening of stories for grown-ups. Set your midwinter season off to a chilly start with stories out of the cold northern lands, tales of bold pipers and foolish folk: a chuckle, a twist and a scent of the unknown blown through on a cold wind….
full details will follow with a skull, a snowflake and a falling pine cone...

Wintry Landscapes, more information

Sunday 13^th December

Time: 10.30 – 12.00

at the Green Man Gallery

Hardwick Square South, Buxton, SK17 6PY

Add an individual touch to your festive decorations!

Join Gordon from Creeping Toad for a session building some exquisite Midwinter creations

We might

• capture a scatter of presents, or leaves, feathers and colours, or even a tiny castle on a bottle lantern
• play with card and colour, pictures and trees building a pop-up world 
• ...of snowmen and frozen pools
• ...of lost castles among dark mountains
• ...of reindoor flying through a starry sky…or we might
• get carried away with a display lantern of trees and palaces, rivers and bridges and children ice-skating into an adventure

During the session, we will make

• a bottle lantern
• at least one small pop-up card
• a larger pop-up landscape
• maybe a round display lantern

This will be a deliciously messy, delightfully creative session, giving you the chance to learn quick techniques and go away with your own wintry landscapes and the skills to make more

                                                                                           

Cost: £6.00 for each participating person - helpful extra hands aren't charged for
Places are limited, you need to book a ticket

Activities suitable for 5 years and over, 7s and under need to bring their own grow-up with them

Materials provided (but if you’d like to bring a washed, empty plastic bottle that could add to the mix (500 ml - 2l are best))

To Book:
phone the Gallery on 01298 937375, email hello@thegreenmangallery.com or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.