By Kate Hodges
16th May 2019
EVENT Summer Loving!
Here comes the summer! The new issue of The Green Parent is out now, and it’s all about love. Have a summer of freedom with our guide to the best festivals for families, indulgent recipes from the hedgerow, plastic-free picnics and find out how to hike with your baby. We’ve got your back with features that will help your children sleep more soundly, become more resilient human beings and the best real nappy hacks on the planet! Plus playful parenting and sea swimming for better mental health!
It’s a jam packed edition - 116 pages of goodness, and there’s a Poppy and Sam Activity Book from Usborne Publishing tucked inside too!
Get your copy here⤵
EVENT Dark Galleries
Museums at Night is a twice-yearly magical series of art, one-off events and wonderful experiences, as galleries and museums across the country keep their doors open into the evening (and, if you’re lucky, overnight). Expect action-packed sleepovers, parties, and immersive artworks, plus magic lantern shows, storytelling and portrait drawing. Take an immersive walk through the history of festivals at The British Music Experience or gaze across Cardiff from the roof of the Old Library. May 15–18. Alternatively, if you’re in Liverpool, don’t miss this weekend’s free, one-night arts festival, Lightnight, a shimmering collection of talks, workshops, performances and incredible light installations. This year’s theme is Ritual!
MAKE, RECIPE, DO Because the Seaweed
Sunny, but not too hot, this is an excellent time of year to start seaweed foraging. There’s a guide and great suggestions for recipes here. However, you don’t have to eat your finds. There are so many beautiful types of seaweed, from delicate red blooms to thick brown ribbons. In Victorian times, it was fashionable to collect them. Why not try pressing your favourites? There’s a guide here and we love this dinky art book made from a seashell. Alternatively, why not try making a whistle out of bladder wrack (you KNOW you want to try that!)?
EVENT Avant Gardeners
The punk rock little sister of the sedate Flower Show, the Chelsea Fringe is London’s incredible annual celebration of alternative planting and nature. An idiosyncratic event that celebrates the best in community and guerrilla gardening, it encourages links between gardens and art, literature, music, cookery, history, crafts and ecology. Whether you learn about foraging in the city on a wild food walk, poke your head into a community garden, or create sun prints, the festival is packed with things that make you gasp with pleasure, as well as inspire you to dig out your fork and trowel. This year, we’re particularly looking forward to the excellent Calthorpe Project’s art day, Wild Singing in the oasis of Nunhead Cemetery and Lauriston School’s Strawberry Fayre event that celebrates their edible garden. There’s also a glorious series of events run under the green canopy of the Urban Tree Festival. Until May 27. Find a map of events here
EVENT LIttle Weeds
Kew Gardens is just about to get even more fun, with this weekend’s opening of The Children’s Garden. Designed for kids from 2–12, at the heart of this huge, natural space is a 200-year-old oak. You’ll find canopy walks, jungles, worm-hole tubes, hammocks, trampolines and periscopes. Find blossom-decked cherry trees and splash pools with stepping stones, and explore all kinds of incredible plants including giant rhubarb, ferns and large-leafed palms. This is a stunning time of year to visit the Gardens, with the revamped Temperate House and spectacular glass sculptures by Chihuli dotted around the grounds. Included in the entrance ticket price.
