Blog

This is the second part of our write up about our Fantastic Fungi Event held on 5th arch 2020. To read the first part, click here.

After an informative and inspirational presentation about  the Mushrooms Exhibition on at Somerset House, we introduced our first guest speaker for the morning, Dr Tony Leech.

Leech is a highly respected fungus expert and enthusiast who leads identification walks for many organisations including the National Trust and Norfolk Wildlife Trust. He taught Biology for 27 years and is the Norfolk County Fungus Recorder. He is an entertaining and informative speaker whose talk delved into the world of folklore, ancient beliefs and the deadly power of fungi…

Witches and Devils: The Darker Side of Fungi

During this intriguing talk, Dr Tony Leech gave examples of the links between fungi and the history of witchcraft.

Dr Leech discusses the well known ‘Toadstool’

Witches Butter was so named supposedly because of a folk tale involving a woman churning milk which refused to turn to butter because it had been looked upon by a witch. Of course, as with many of these stories, the witch comes to a sticky end.

Along with Witches Butter, there are some wonderful names for fungi that link back to witchcraft. Witches Egg is another name for Stinkhorn, and Devils Fingers or Devils Claws are related to it. Devils Bolete is the only Bolete that is poisonous, and one of only around 20 species of fungi in the UK that is poisonous.

Leech also covered some of the problematic folklore around how to identify edible mushrooms, including prompts like ‘does is blacken a silver spoon?’ And ‘does it peel easily?’ Unsurprisingly, these were not good gages as to how safe it is to eat different varieties of mushroom.

Chaos at Salem Witch Trails

Interestingly, Leech explained that the strongest link between fungi and witchcraft came down to this kind of knowledge- is this mushroom safe to eat or not? From the middle ages, a woman who lived slightly outside a village or town and who had knowledge about edible mushrooms and ones that could be used for their medicinal properties, could be seen as some kind of threat. Being on the margins of society made such women easy to blame for things such as bad harvests, and therefore they would be tried as witches and got rid of.

In records of the last Salem witch trials, Leech pointed out how its worth noting the descriptions of strange behaviour taking place, including fits and hallucinations. At the time, these symptoms were put down to the witches on trail cursing people, however these symptoms also align with signs of mushroom poisoning. We were left to think of that at the end of Leech’s talk.

Next, we had Jon Tyler introduce mushrooms in a more general sense.

Jon Tyler, is a highly experienced forager and bush-craft practitioner with a natural passion and enthusiasm for wildlife, wild food and outdoor living. He gave a broad introduction to fungi, their unique character, field characteristics and role in the ecological system. He talked about the varieties that are special to this area and how to forage for them…

The General Characteristics of Mushroom Varieties

Technically, the word ‘mushroom’ refers to the umbrella-like form of the fruiting body of a fungus. The unseen root network known as mycelium is what makes up the rest of the fungus.

Saprophytes

In this type of fungi, Tyler explained that the mycelium threads excrete enzymes that breakdown dead or decaying organic matter such as wood. Species like the Giant Polypore will start off as a parasite, taking from 40 to 100 years to kill a tree. Once the tree is dead, the Polypore will revert to a saprophyte and live off the dead wood.

Felted Fly Agaric by Dotty Scotty

Conversely, the Fly Agaric- one of the most written about varieties of fungi- has recently been understood to actually aid the trees living around it.  Fly Agarics can form partnerships with nearby trees, particularly birch and pines, creating mycorrhizal associations with the trees’ roots, extending the root base and in turn receiving some of the nutrients those roots take out of the soil. Fly Agaric are now known to be unable to survive without this relationship, so they will only be found where there are trees nearby.

Edible mushrooms selection by Jon Tyler

Tyler went on to discuss other ways in which fungi aid the woodland system, including that they break down up to 2 meters of fallen leaves each year, keeping woodland floors rich in soil. It is estimated that there are around 15,000 fungus species in the UK, most of which can be found in wooded areas.

Fairy Rings

Something that Jon Tyler and Tony Leech both touched upon is the phenomenon of the fairy ring. Only visible as circles of dark grass for most of the year, but fruiting into a ring of mushrooms in autumn, fairy rings were once theorised to be the result of lighting strikes, dancing fairies or even courting mushrooms! Now it is understood that an entire ring comes from just one single fungus spore germinating and producing mycelium which grows out from the centre in a network of threads. As the root-like system grows outward, the central parts die off, meaning when it fruits, the mushrooms come up on the outskirts of the mycelium circle, forming a ring. The network continues to grow underground as the centre dies off, so year on year these fiery rings get larger.  Tyler had recently visited one that measured 40 metres across and is estimated to be 500 years old. Some types of fairy ring can spread to as wide as 2 square kilometres.

Incredible facts peppered both talks, and I feel I came away from the talks almost more fascinated than I was before the day began. Thankfully the experience wasn’t entirely over as there were some wonderful displays to look through in The Cut Cafe. Jon Tyler exhibited some of his mushroom paraphernalia, while Halesworth book shop provided a fine selection of mushroom-themed books.

Dotty Scotty’s Felted Fungi

The pièce de résistance was by far Joanna Scott’s display of hand felted mushrooms and garden birds. Made using natural wool, a barbed needle and a lot of stabbing, Scott’s creations were beautiful to behold. A small workshop was held for those who wanted to try their hand at making their own mushroom and I’m only sad I didn’t get to stick around to see the end results!

All in all, it was a great morning. We’d like to say a special thanks to our guest speakers Dr Tony Leech and Jon Tyler for sharing their expertise, and to Joanna Scott for sharing her gorgeous creations with us.

If you’d like to hear more about our upcoming talks, workshops and other events, make sure you’ve signed up to our fortnightly newsletter, and add us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

On Thursday 5th March 2020, we launched our first event of the year, Fantastic Fungi, with guest speakers Jon Tyler and Dr Tony Leech, along side a pop up exhibit of felt artist Joanna Scott’s mushroom-inspired creations.

We started the talk with an introduction from our new Chair, Genevieve Rudd, and then dove straight into an exploration of the Mushrooms exhibition at Somerset House with former Chair, Nicky Stainton, and new Marketing Officer, Hatty Leith (that’s me!).

Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi

As climate change becomes a crisis we cannot ignore, the fragility and complexity of the natural world is becoming hugely resonant… Increasingly, fungi are appearing in contemporary art and design. Mushrooms became prominent in paintings, drawing and collages by contemporary artists in the 1960s… Today there is a veritable explosion of mushrooms in art. Why are artists and designers so drawn to fungi?” Francesca Gavin, Curator

The exhibition at Somerset House explores this question with a series of small rooms, each encapsulating aspects of human fascination with Fungi, from watercolour studies by Beatrix Potter, to Kristel Peters’ shoes made from mycelium. A glass cabinet in the centre of one room displays of old editions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, illustrated by different artists, laid open side by side at the iconic plate: a depiction of the blue philosophical caterpillar, Absolem, sat atop a bright red ‘toadstool’ that, after the talk today, I now know is a Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria). While this mushroom definitely has hallucinogenic properties, in reality it’s more likely to have put child Alice into a coma than make her very tall or very small.

Mushrooms have become visual shorthand for referencing the ecstatic and hallucinogenic. Contemporary scientists are taking psilocybe mushrooms very seriously to help treat addiction, depression and other mental issues.” Francesca Gavin, Curator

One installation encourages you to stand in the centre of three lurid green tv screens as the videos playing simulate the feeling of a magic mushroom induced high. Another display talks of the groundbreaking 1957 article in Life magazine ‘Seeking the Magic Mushroom’. This article has been widely blamed for bringing hallucinogenic mushrooms to the forefront of the public eye, resulting in its recreational use and the eventual stigma that saw scientific studies into its medicinal use banned or underfunded. It is only now, 60 years later, that studies are beginning to gain traction again.

Nicky and I shared our thoughts on some of the artists’ work that stood out to us. My personal favourites were the hand cut collages by ‘Cut and Paste Magician’ Seana Gavin. Her surreal creations include city scapes cut out of natural forms where mushrooms become large buildings with industrial chimneys, or a combination of bright, obscure fungi become a composition worth of a space opera. It comes as no surprise to hear she is influenced heavily by the likes of Hieronymus Bosch.

The work that stayed with Nicky the most was the Infinity Burial Suit created by Korean-American artist Jae Rhim Lee. The suit is made from mushrooms and other biological materials that help decompose a human body. The process delivers nutrients to surrounding plants, while cleansing the body and soil of toxins that would be bad for the environment. Lee has set up the company Coeio to sell her burial suits online for $1500. On the website, Lee asks “Could mushrooms be the symbol and tool for a cultural shift in how we think about death and our relationship to the planet?” Since first asking this question to herself, Lee has worn her burial suit to fashion shows and even during a TED Talk in 2011. You can watch her talk here.

Fungi are everywhere. They exist under the earth, on top of our skin and inside our bodies. Their spores are floating around us constantly… They are growing into the human imagination.” Francesca Gavin, Curator

A Morning of Fantastic Fungi: Part Two can be viewed here, where I talk about what we’ve learned from the insightful talks by Jon Tyler and Dr Tony Leech.

If you’re a W&BA member and have an idea in mind for a blog post you’d like to write for us, please get in touch. Email [email protected] to discuss your article and we might publish it here.

Arable field marked up ready for planting

2019 has seen the culmination of a dream, one in which Waveney & Blyth Arts have a stake. W&BA members Melinda Appleby and Brian Guthrie have led two successful walks along Cowpasture Lane, Mellis (near Diss) as part of our annual Celebrate events programme. The walks proved popular because of the link with nature writer Roger Deakin, whose home, Walnut Tree Farm, lies adjacent to the lane and features in his books.

During the 1980s, when agricultural intensification was still being encouraged, Deakin was instrumental in preventing the removal of the lane and only a small section was lost. In 2016 we walked from Thornham Parva to Mellis reading from Deakin’s books along the way.

The current owners of Walnut Trees Farm kindly welcomed walkers to look round the flower filled meadows that surround the farmhouse. We discussed how landscapes influence writers but also asked if writers influence landscape. There were whispers that perhaps the missing section of Cowpasture Lane might be reinstated.

The lane dreams of its future

In 2019, as part of our Bugs & Blossoms campaign, we led a stroll round Mellis Common culminating again at Walnut Tree Farm, with a few of us swimming in its famous moat. The whispers were louder: there was a real plan to bring the community together to replant the lane.

At the end of November, when rain had puddled the heavy clay soil, the planting weekend took place. More than 2,500 hedgerow plants and trees were planted on either side of the footpath south of the main railway line. Sixty of us took part, including tree wardens from all over Suffolk, local residents, a district councillor and families with children. Notably, nature writers Robert Macfarlane and Patrick Barkham brought their families to help. Soup, tea, coffee, a fire, cakes and other delights were provided by local people. The work was part of a Woodland Trust More Hedges scheme with additional funding from Suffolk County Council and coordinated by local residents, Edwin Van Ek (Woodland Trust) and Suffolk Tree Warden Network.

A small but inspiring story of how words can inspire action and how communities can work together to put nature back. We will be watching to see how the lane evolves. There might be walks and celebrations; maybe a special follow-up walk in 2020.

Melinda Appleby

We hosted an exciting year of walks, talks and workshops – 44 in total! – as part of our annual Celebrate programme. A massive THANK YOU to all the programme leaders, volunteers, management committee, venues, collaborating partners and supporters of our programme who helped with energy and enthusiasm to make it such an excellent year.

Behind the scenes, we’ve been busy getting plans together for our 2020 programme, a couple of which have already been announced on our website. Next year is W&BA’s 10th birthday, so we’re planning a year of activities which builds upon our decade of work using the arts to connect people and places along the Waveney and Blyth river valleys.

Alongside changes to our management committee in November, we’ve also introduced a new secure online payment system for membership and events. If you’d like to join us a member (or continue your membership for another year), follow the simple payment system on our website. The cost is the same – £15 for individuals and £20 for organisations – and, as ever, includes discount at all of our events and creative opportunities through the year.

Our programme in 2019…

Thrilling Thursdays Woolgathering event in 2019, image by @ingridx on Instagram

Our Celebrate programme ran from May to October this year. We hosted an engaging programme of creative walks which took groups to curious places in the landscape, discovering habitats through drawing in Walberswick, Roman ruins in Burgh Castle, and stories of hoards in Hoxne.

Through our talks and workshops, we explored the mythology of spinning through poetry, the lives of insects via the lens of macro photography, and the world of all things wool at a popular textile-themed morning at The Cut (pictured) as part of our Thrilling Thursdays programme.

Our sixth annual sculpture event – Waveney Valley Sculpture Trail – was held at the Raveningham Centre near Beccles for it’s third year. It was curated by artist Sarah Cannell themed around the ‘Woven Woodland’, set amongst three acres of lawns, orchards and woodland spaces. It was a busy and well-attended 5 weeks and we’d like to thank everyone involved who made it possible! This year, our flagship sculpture event will take on its next incarnation as Sculpture in the Valley 2020. Every three years we move onto a new patch and next year, we’re very excited to be hosted at Potton Hall, Westleton to delve into the Blyth valley landscape. Sculpture in the Valley 2020 will run from 18th July to 2nd August, curated by Suffolk-based David Baldry. Our call out to artists is now open until 7th February – we can’t wait to see your proposals!

This year, in response to the decline of biodiversity in our patch and beyond, we launched our Bugs & Blossoms programme. In May, we took over the community centre at Palgrave near Diss, for a weekend getting up close to the lives of insects, including an illustrated talk and macro photography workshop from Nicky Upton, weaving workshops with Jenny Goater and Maggie Campbell, and a walk inspired by Roger Deakin’s plant and insect observations. The Bugs & Blossoms theme created a buzz throughout the 2019 programme beyond the weekend launch too, with a midsummer moth walk led by Mark Cocker and haiku poetry with Tim Gardiner, and will continue into 2020… Look out for announcements in spring!

We also established our inaugural Two Rivers Book Festival in 2019, which is shaping up for next year’s programme too. This year, our festival patron Liz Calder – Booker Prize judge & co-founder of Bloomsbury Publishing – launched the festival with Dan Franklin and Lucy Hughes-Hallett talking about the fascinating world of publishing. Liz Calder will be back in 2020 with another intriguing talk in the summer.

Letterpress printing event as part of Two Rivers Book Festival in 2019, image by @mitchellfinch on Instagram

As part of the Two Rivers Book Festival this year, we also took a creative look at books, including book-binding with Helen Durrent, letterpress printing with Edwin Mitchell-Finch (pictured), and authors Rosemary Davidson and Arzu Tahsin took an audience through ‘craftfulness’ techniques, exploring ways to achieve calm through making. The ever-popular Doggerland also featured too, with excerpts from Julia Blackburn’s Time Song leading the path for a guided walk through Benacre. The Low House at Laxfield ran with the theme and hosted a very popular weekend marking the end of our first year of Two Rivers.

We were also delighted to be selected for the 2019 Pakefield Postcard Auction which this summer raised over £3,500 for the W&BA programme next year. Thank you to the PPA organisers who work tirelessly to give back to their local community through annual art auctions. We’re very grateful to the generous postcard artists and bidders!

Coming next year…

In light of the changes to the management committee in the November AGM, we’ve been working behind the scenes to plan a programme which gets to the core of W&BA: using the arts to connect people and places along the Waveney and Blyth river valleys.

On 5th March, we’ll be hosting our first Thrilling Thursdays morning of 2020 at The Cut, Halesworth. We’ll be delving into the fascinating world of fungi with support from our experienced guides Jon Tyler and Tony Leech, who’ll be talking on the subject. Plus, we’ll be joined by Joanna Scott AKA Dotty Scotty, W&BA member and needle-felter extraordinaire, who’ll be showing us how fungi is endlessly inspiring in craft too. The Cut will also be laying on a mushroom themed lunch to enjoy. Book your tickets now!

Sculpture in the Valley 2020 team – Genevieve Rudd W&BA Chair & SitV coordinator, David Baldry curator & Simon Raven site manager

Sculpture in the Valley 2020, our flagship annual sculpture event, will be hosted at Potton Hall, Westleton from 18th July to 2nd August. We’re delighted to be working with curator David Baldry who will be selecting the work for the event. Potton Hall offers W&BA members working in sculpture the opportunity to explore this year’s theme: ‘Reflections on Landscape’. We’re looking for artists to consider ideas about scale (micro to macro), perspectives and interaction between wild and cultivated aspects of the landscape. We are living in the context of climate crisis and this, along with broader perspectives on the landscapes we live in and our relationships with it could be compelling ideas to explore. Read more about the application process on our website.

Next year, expect walks, workshops and talks which grow curiosity for the landscapes, habitats and places in our patch through the arts. But for now, enjoy the festivities and look forward to the returning of the light as the days start to get longer towards spring.

Best wishes,
Genevieve Rudd, W&BA Chair

Last Thursday’s AGM at The Cut was a significant event as it marked the start of a new era for the organisation.

After 9 years of amazing activities, and with both sadness and some relief, I stepped down as Chair of the Management Committee and handed the role over to Genevieve Rudd. Genevieve has been the Great Yarmouth representative since 2017 and the Newsletter/Social Media/Website mastermind for the last year or so. I and the committee are hugely pleased that she is taking on this role and leading a refreshed team into the next period of W&BA growth.

For it was not only my turn to step down. We also said thanks and farewell to Jan Dungey, who has had to retire as Secretary due to ill health, and to Hon Treasurer Greg Tebble who is stepping back into an advisory role, but remaining as Independent Examiner. In their places Jo Butcher was elected as Secretary and Katie Ferdinand as Treasurer.

These three bright young women, plus Harleston representative Hatty Leith, make up what we are calling the Next Generation Team. In keeping with W&BA’s collaborative style of management and delivery they are going to undertake a professional development programme over the next 12 months so that they are in a strong position to lead the organisation into new areas. Members of the original team (Simon Raven, Brian Guthrie, Netta Swallow and myself) are staying as active members of the Management Committee to provide continuity and share our knowledge and skills, but will have a much lighter hand on the tiller.

You will be pleased to learn that as the organisation is in a sound financial state it was decided to peg membership rates for another year at the current level. New automated functions are being added to the W&BA website so that it will be much easier to take out and renew membership, and to buy tickets for events. These aspects are being road-tested at the moment and as soon as they are fully functional you will be sent a reminder to renew your membership before 31st December, so please look out for this.

Thanks to those members who came along on Thursday, or sent their apologies, and to all our members for your continuing support and enthusiasm. We always appreciate your comments, suggestions and even niggles (not that there are many!) so please stay in contact, and continue to help arts and the environment thrive in Waveney & Blyth.

Here is Genevieve to introduce herself and tell you about her aspirations for the organisation:

“I have been involved with W&BA since 2017 as the representative for Great Yarmouth. For the past 14 months, I’ve collated the weekly newsletters, and managed the website and social media for W&BA. I have also led walks as part of the annual Celebrate programme in my end of the micro-region. Alongside my work at W&BA, my background is in community arts and arts engagement. I organise and lead creative projects with people in Norfolk & Suffolk as a freelancer, plus as an Associate Artist/Tutor at the Sainsbury Centre at the UEA. I work with a broad cross-section of community groups, and the common factor which links the projects is to connect people to local heritage, cultural and environmental matters through visual arts.

“I’m very honoured to be put forward as Chair for W&BA, and to be part of the Next Generation team, which will build upon the last 10 years of excellent work, and look forward to the next 10 years, and beyond. As Chair, I will bring my energy and enthusiasm for connecting people with the local landscape through the arts, my experience of coordinating arts projects, and of building collaborative working partnerships in the locality.”

From Nicky Stainton & Genevieve Rudd

Mid-September and our poetry competition results are in.

[Read more…] about Blog: Poetry Competition Results

The Booker judges have whittled the longlist of thirteen books down to a shortlist of six. Four of them from the giant conglomerate Penguin Random House. Four woman authors, two men; two big hitting previous Booker winners; many countries represented. Here they are.

Margaret Atwood: The Testaments – despite the fact this much anticipated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale is not published until 10 September

Lucy Ellmann: Ducks, Newburyport – the longest (1,000 pages) from the smallest publisher, Norfolk-based Galley Beggar Press

Bernardine Evaristo: Girl, Woman, Other – the only UK author

Chigozie Obioma: An Orchestra of Minorities – one of two longlisted books set in Nigeria

Salman Rushdie: Quichotte – Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children won the best of Bookers, but this latest has its critics (‘bloated’ said one)

Elif Shafak: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World – from Turkey’s leading author

So let’s have your votes, and your views. Our prize ­– a signed copy of the winning book – is still to be won. Take a look at our Booker Prize 2019 page to be in with a chance to win.

As the Membership and Bookings Officer for Waveney & Blyth Arts, I am busy through the summer months taking bookings from people for the ‘Celebrate’ programme. But early in July, I went to volunteer for seven days with the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd in Scotland. The Cairngorm Reindeer Centre offer daily hill trips for visitors to see the herd and I had been on one of these trips in 2015, fallen in love with the reindeer and since then had wanted to return to spend more time with these charming and intriguing animals, and find out more about what goes on at Reindeer Centre, so I applied to volunteer.

The Cairngorm reindeer herd was established in 1952. Mikel Utsi visited Aviemore in the late 1940s and found that the habitat on the Cairngorm Mountain was perfect for reindeer, and had been surprised not to find any there. In fact reindeer had been native to Scotland but had died out, so Mikel Utsi reintroduced reindeer to the Cairngorm mountainside by bringing eight reindeer across from Sweden in 1952 and today the herd is 150 strong.

Reindeer Centre in Glenmore consists of a souvenir shop where visitors go to buy their hill trip tickets, a small office and accommodation for the herders. There is also a paddock and exhibition space so visitors can learn more about the history of the herd and about reindeer in general. There are craft activities to enjoy in this space and talks by herders. Four reindeer are in the paddock each day so that visitors who can’t make the hill trip still have the opportunity to interact with these fabulous animals.

When volunteering there is no guarantee of how much time volunteers get to spend with the herd as there are a variety of jobs to do at Reindeer Centre but I am tremendously grateful that I got to spend a lot of time with the reindeer, up on the hillside and in the paddock, learning about herding, halter training, health checks, and feeding, all of which I got to take part in, it was very exciting.

I was shown how to put food out for the reindeer in the paddock, these reindeer got an extra treat of lichen with their food, Lichen, birch leaves and blueberries, ‘blaeberry’ in Scotland, are all favourite food for the reindeer. Blueberries grow on the mountainside so are one of the things the reindeer have naturally in their diet. Although the reindeer have everything they need to eat on the mountainside their diet is supplemented with a food mix made by the herders at reindeer centre and so I was shown how to mix their food, and this became a task I did regularly. Included in the reindeer food are dark grains, a by-product of the whiskey industry, sheep food, barley and sugar beet.

In the summer months there are three hill trips for visitors a day. Visits to the herd are a car ride and short walk away from reindeer centre. The herders leading the hill trips carry the bags of feed up the mountainside where visitors are given the opportunity to hand feed the reindeer. Feeding the reindeer is a wonderful thing to do, they have furry noses and you can feel their breath on your hands as they feed. One of the things I loved about accompanying visitors on hill trips was seeing the joy on their faces when feeding the reindeer, the same joy I had first experienced when visiting in 2015. Visitors going on the hill trips will often need to hire wellies, so I would help with getting the right size for visitors and then washing off any dirt from the wellies when they were returned. Other general duties were cleaning and topping things up; stock in the shop, bird feeders, the squirrel feeder, water, and craft supplies in the exhibition centre. I swept up pine needles that were dropping from the trees and ‘poo picked’ the paddock. Where there are reindeer there is reindeer poop so scooping poop from the paddock area was one of the first jobs I was shown. This was not a messy job as reindeer poop is like a cluster of rabbit droppings.

Whilst in the paddock area there were often rabbits and pigeons, and on occasion I saw a tiny little mouse and I was also lucky enough to see red squirrels. I was also shown how to set up and close down the exhibition space and paddock area morning and evening and on my last day completed the set up and feed and let the reindeers in to the paddock by myself which was a real treat. What I really enjoyed and felt very privileged to be a part of was the team spirit at reindeer house, everyone working there looked for jobs to do and everyone helped with everything. It was very inspiring.

The striking difference between the Cairngorms and Norfolk is of course the mountains, and the incredible views that accompany a climb up a mountain. I climbed Cairngorm Mountain, which is the sixth highest mountain in the UK, there is a 360 degree view from the top and it did not disappoint, it was phenomenal. My camera battery had run out half way up but I was relieved in a way because it meant I was completely in the moment, absorbing the view of mountains after mountains after mountains for miles in the distance. There was some cloud the day I went up, not enough to obscure the view, just a few near by and when I reached the top it did feel as though I was in the middle of a cloud doughnut at one point, it was very atmospheric.

This was another fascinating aspect of going part way up the mountain on the hill trips, seeing the incredible views of the landscape, different on a daily basis, affected by the changing weather in the distance. I really enjoyed watching rain, mist, sunlight, clouds, and cloud shadows transform and morph the view, sometimes on a minute by minute basis.

Another difference between being in Scotland compared to Norfolk was the light. To be more specific, the hours of daylight. I don’t think I have previously travelled north in summer before as I was really surprised by how light it was late into the evening. With staying there so close to the summer solstice it was particularly noticeable. It was very striking, and as I hadn’t considered that it would be lighter it was a delightful surprise.

As well as enjoying all of the above it was fascinating to learn more facts about the reindeer too. The herders stop at intervals on route to the herd to tell visitors all about the reindeer, so I picked up lots of interesting facts from this as well as from looking around the exhibition space. The most intriguing thing to me is the ability the reindeer have to conserve energy in the challenging weather conditions. In winter they grow a thick cut with an under layer, the long hairs on the outer layer are hollow to trap warmth. They can locate one another in foggy or blizzard conditions from the clicking noise that comes from their heels which is made by tendons snapping over bone, this saves them losing warmth from their bodies, which would happen if they communicated vocally. As well as having furry noses the reindeer have an internal heat exchange system which means air breathed in is warmed before it gets to the lungs and cooled before it is breathed out. The reindeer are very energy efficient. There are lots of other exciting reindeer facts so if you are interested in learning more one thing you could begin by looking up is about their feet, and one book I would recommend is ‘Reindeer: An Arctic Life’ by Tilly Smith, owner of the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd. In this book you will find out about the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd as well as about reindeer in general. I would of course also recommend a visit to the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd, for more information and the blog they write this is their website http://www.cairngormreindeer.co.uk you can find out interesting things like how they name their reindeer, amongst lots of other things. If you want to see more pictures from my visit you can find them on my Instagram account @katie_ferdinand, but you will need to scroll back as I have posted several other pictures since.

I had an incredible time and am looking forward to going and spending time with the herd at some point again soon, either as a visitor or working with them.