Much mirth & merriment was had en route as we rushed through the metropolis to gain a congestion zone ticket only to discover that tickets cannot be purchased this way via shops. Following this fun few hours we met the wonderful crew &  spent all available daylight hours wrestling with a playful yurt that really had a spell put on it from playful pixies! Avoiding serious head injuries from falling poles we retired to preserve our energies for the lovely visitors who would no doubt descend on our enchanted woodland tomorrow.

Our day began with a cloud free azure blue sky which just accentuated our fairy queens beauty adding to the magic. The woodland trail was soon alive with the chatter of children & bird noise working its way to the magic of the wishing tree. The wishes were soon to envelope the tree with many sincere heartfelt thoughts of hopes and dreams. The young peoples faces & expressions showed that the magic is alive & well in their world and the grown ups present enquired what the trust was aiming to do for the children.Magic wands changed hands & wild flowers will hopefully flourish in gardens for little creatures  to enjoy.

The queen received  gifts and was pleased to see so many youngsters (including teenagers) not only eager to bring gifts & attend the queen but also expressing that they believed. The queen was flattered that children curtsied before her and several made references to her majesty!Comments were made suggesting dreams were believable, things are achievable and all you needed was a little magic. All the people we were so fortunate to have met had more than enough magic & the messages on the tree were testimony to that (ps the tree did manage to hold the weight of all the messages). Overall the three days down by the river at London zoo were magical and we are sure to meet  plenty of lovely visitors who are eager to attend the Real Halloween in October  at Holt Hall.  

Festival on the Farm, Gressenhall, Norfolk

Saturday 10th August, Festival on the Farm, Gressenhall, Norfolk
Today we had the pleasure of running fairy crown making workshops at a lovely family festival at Gressenhall Museum, the Festival on the Farm. We all arrived before 8 am to set up and decorate the Fairyland Trust area and medieval workshop tent, we were located in a lovely grassy area next to the orchards, alongside drumming workshops, knitting workshops, storytellers and much much more. Come 10 am the queues were mounting outside the festival entrance and we were costumed, decorated and ready to spread some nature magic. Our set up was much helped by the fine weather.
We ran four crown making workshops throughout the day, after the first one we were consistently booked up, with waiting lists. We were pleased to see a few familiar faces from the Fairy Fair and Real Halloween who had come and found us as they loved the workshops they had attended before. We also met lots of new friends, many of whom were keen to come and see the magic of the Real Halloween and Fairy Fair.

See Abbie preparing Hawthorn sprigs, said to be the Fairy Queens favourite, ready for the hordes of young crown makers to adorn their crowns

Hello FairyLand Trust followers!

Here is an update on the Camp Bestival weekend, Fridays blog post is by fairy Clare, and Danny the elf has written a retrospective post of his whole experience at CB!


Friday 2nd August

We were woken to the hypnotic sound of rain on canvas this morning, once again the world outside shrouded in mist. As on our first day here, the veil teasingly lifted, gradually revealing our beautiful surroundings and THE SUN.

It has been a wonderful day for the Fairyland Trust. All our Fairy Crown workshops were fully booked, the dapper Danny and Pete recruited some lovely supporters and the magical Dingly Dell now proudly hosts some amazingly imaginative and intricate Fairy Houses. Some beetles had already moved into one.

Kelly preparing string for general tying and fixing, or for washing lines. Even fairies have laundry!

Clare foraging for building materials.

 

Some of the lovely Fairy Houses

 



Spiderman modelling a lovely Fairy Crown

2 of our crew studying ‘The Natural History of the Unicorn’.

 

Paige briefing Luke in the art of Crown Making

It is a good feeling to know we have spread a little nature magic today. Seeing children and adults foraging amongst the twigs and earth looking for suitable materials to make fairy beds, doorways, crockery or chimney pots is a very lovely thing. As is watching 25 children listen in silent rapture to our Crown Maker show them how to make a harebell out of tissue paper.

This Fairyland Blogger will leave you with the image of a contented crew member strolling back to the camp at about 11pm, having seen Billy Bragg earlier on the Castle Stage (a glorious reminder of festivals gone by), and two children walking past with worn out parents, chanting "No sleep for us! No sleep for us!".

This really is a festival for the small people!

My experience of Camp Bestival 2013....   Danny

Wednesday

The Berlingo limped into the grounds of Lulworth Castle having come to the boil around 20 miles short of the site. After registration we located the rest of the crew and pitched the tent before having a bite to eat and a few drinks.

Thursday

After a brief gathering of the crew in the morning those without children headed onto the main site to put the finishing touches to the Workshop and check out Dingly Dell, The Fairy Houses  location.

A big thumbs-up to the rest of the crew who had obviously been hard at work on Wednesday whilst I was nervously poking the radiator cap on the Berlingo, wishing I knew about cars.

Kendra and myself took a wander through a military firing range with the children in a bid to locate a beach. We saw a pair of Buzzards and Freddie managed to find some ammunition rounds which I persuaded him to place (gently) back where he found them. The beach looked lovely but was sadly out of bounds due to unexploded shells and non-specific military stuff. The view was breathtaking however.

In the evening we all went onto the site and gathered foliage and treasures for Fridays activities.

Friday

I headed down onto site with two very excited children at 10am in the morning. With a bag full of snacks and sun-cream we roamed the festival. Freddie met up with his friend and they done a Comic book animation workshop whilst Rosie got her face painted.

After the kids had a go on the carousel it was time to report for my first shift as Booking-in fairy for the Fairy Crowns Workshop. My initial nerves soon tailed away. People seem genuinely interested in what the Fairyland Trust are doing and the children are enchanted by the workshops.

In the evening the family went down and watched Billy Bragg. I took a makeshift Trolley to transport Rosie and we went for drinks with friends at the furthest end of the Festival site before the long trek back to the crew site.

 Saturday

Saturday morning saw me heading back to drop Freddie at another animation workshop. Rosie got another face painting session in and we watched Mr Tumble doing some old school nose- parping and custard pie antics.

  I reported for my shift on Fairy Houses. Again this was my first experience of doing this. The wooded area was directly next to the main stage but seemed to have a calming effect on the crowds that entered. It was lovely to see families taking time out from the madness of a festival to build the houses together. It was great to see the imagination and energy of the children being reciprocated by the parents, especially the ones that had looked at me like I was a bit mad when I explained what we were up to.

We saw the Levellers on Saturday night. I watched them on the forecourt of the Castle. I’ve been meaning to see the Levellers since I was a teenager so this was great.

 

Sunday

The crew got together early to wish Ben a Happy 18^th Birthday and we all had slice of fantastic birthday cake which had been commissioned from the crew caterers.

 I clocked on for the early shift as a Booking-in Fairy for “Fairy Books”. It struck me that over the three days I began to recognise some of the children/parents hanging around the workshops and Fairy Houses area. We definitely had built a fan-base by this point. Again the shift was great fun and I only heard positive things about peoples experience with the Fairyland Trust.

 I also managed to listen to Dick and Dom doing a “Bogies” routine and the Wurzels whilst manning my post- both of which were a little surreal. I spent the afternoon watching some medieval  jousting action which led to the kids having a sword fight in front of the castle.

In the evening we saw a little bit of Alan Davies before meeting with some of the crew and watching the fireworks/projections from a cheeky “staff-only” location to the side of the main stage.

Monday

We were all packed-up early and making our way off-site by around 10:30am.

A massive thanks to the other crew members who put in a sterling effort with the set-up/pack down and to Clare who organised us in a serenely calm manner.

Thanks to everyone for reading!

This is another blog, written on Thursday and posted today by FairyLand helper Ben Reynolds.

After a reasonably good night sleep by the fairy crew we all woke ready to create a magical workshop space. In no time at all we had the medieval tent ready once again for Fairy Crowns, Magic Wands and Fairy Books, with enough room for the booking booth to accommodate all of our lovely seed wands.

Ready for action!

 

With everything set up and ready for tomorrow, some of us took a walk to try and find the beach! This proved harder than we originally thought; if you were thinking that a big, wet expanse of blue would be easy to find you would be wrong! At least, it’s not easy for us northern folk anyway, we climbed steep hills and cliff sides in the mid-day heat of Lulworth to try and get to the sea. At the very top we could see for miles around including a great view of Camp Bestival and the central point itself; Lulworth Castle. Whilst others turned back, others carried on, till eventually we could see the surf. However in our way was the steepest path that any of us had ever seen! So resting a while on the edge we agreed that getting back up this path in time for the morning workshop may prove difficult! So turning our backs on the beach we headed away back to Camp! On our walk we happened to come across some familiar flowers from some of the workshops, including Harebells, Yarrow and Field Scabious

The not so small hill we thought would be easy to climb.

Camp Bestival doesn't look too big from up here!

Fairy Abbie and I running on the hillside.

So close to the beach, but still so far!

Harebells, to let the fairies know there's a party.

 

At dusk, while it was nice and cool, some of us went off into the woods to collect foliage. It’s amazing what a little greenery can do to a tent! As the site has begun to darken once again and the littler members of the fairy crew are tucked away fast asleep, we have all begun to drift back to our crew camp. Even though we didn’t quite make it to the beach, the local countryside was more than enough as compromise and I think we will all sleep well tonight, ready for the first bit of FairyLand magic to begin at Camp Bestival tomorrow.

Well worth the climb!

 

Another wonderful retrospective blog due to Wi-Fi difficulties here at Camp Bestival, apologies for the delay!

So after a good rest and a nice shower, the time soon came for the fairy team to be on the road again. Camp Bestival here we come!

It has been a long day driving to arrive at Lulworth, but it really was worth it! Camp Bestival is in such a beautiful area full of wildlife and nature, perfect for the fairy team and our workshops.

When we arrived, Pete and Rachael had already put up the medieval tent! So when the crew reunited we put up the ‘awkward ’cook tent for Fairy Houses, however I got distracted by the beautiful Peacock that was obviously eager to make himself a fairy house.

 

Our eager visitor

                                                  

 

The fairy houses tent all ready for building!

The children have some competition!

 

Once we decorated the Fairy Houses area with bunting, we put some foliage up around the metal fence that lined the road next to the medieval. Some of the staff around the area had lots of spare Oak and kindly offered it to us, now we have lots of Oak for Crowns and Wands!

As the temperature dropped we decided to leave it until tomorrow to finish off the workshop and make the area look like it’s been touched by fairies, if only we had some fairy dust to help us!

Smart idea of the day! Pete made a bath for the withies so they don’t dry up!

Withie bath!

Lulworth castle, the beautiful setting for Camp B!

 

Secret Garden Party meets the FairyLand Trust!

Hello Fairy Followers!

First I must apologise for the lack of blog posts whilst the Fairy team have been at Secret Garden Party the weekend just past, we had technical problems with Wi-Fi and logging on to the blog. However I thought a retrospective collection of the three days the workshops were running would do nicely as a catch-up (quite a lot of update so sorry for the length of the blog post).

Friday: Fairy Blogger - Andrea Osborne

After leaving Latitude, the Fairy Fair crew headed across country to Cambridgeshire for the Secret Garden Party – a magical festival where ordinary life and beliefs have to be left at the gate. A perfect setting for Fairyland workshops.

The heavens opened Thursday night and the rains came – someone must have been rain dancing for hours! The next morning we ventured into the damp dark woods gathering greenery to decorate the Fairyland workshop area with lush green foliage. So much foliage was gathered that we have been able to create a wonderful green entrance to the workshop.

Friday's workshops were to make Fairy Crowns and we had a stream of children hoping to make perfect fairy festival headwear from willow, trails of ivy and leaves. Some children wanted real flowers but of course we make paper ones so the real ones remain for the fairies.

But one little girl said “I’m not sure I believe in fairies”. A chorus of children chimed up that even if you can’t see them, they still may exist”. One little boy went so far as to stand up and say: “But if you don’t believe in fairies, the tooth fairy won’t come”. And he should know, having lost 4 teeth in the last month!

Fairy helper Rachel writing on the board. 

The workshop all set up!

Pete on booking duty!

 

Saturday and Sunday: Fairy Blogger - Ben Reynolds

 

Saturday brought along sunshine and Magic Wands! The workshops kicked off with only a small group of Wand makers because of the Circus acts going on next door! Despite the size of our little group they all left with smiling faces and plans to cast spells on their brothers and sisters! One girl told us she was going to use her Willow wand (which is said to have healing abilities) “to cure mummy's aches and pains”

 

More Wand makers appeared in the afternoon ready to spin the season wheel and find out which type of tree their wand was going to be made of. Every season had a taker with winter being the most popular and one young girl was thrilled when she was given a birch leaf to tie onto her birch wand! The day finished as sunny as it started and the 6 Fairy Crew Gardeners ready for book making the next day!

The lovely weather on Saturday started to turn our green entrance crispy!

The 'wool tree' ready to add some colour to the Wands.

Many familiar faces appeared on Sunday, children who had already made crowns or wands (or both) were back to take home a little wildflower fairy book as well. With lots of colouring, glue and glitter this workshop is always a favourite, with boys and girls concentrating desperately to try and stay within the lines of their Musk Mallow or Red Clover outline.

Once we eventually got to sticking in the leaf samples, we were sticking in our Willow tree leaves when one bookmaker thought it was very important to announce his sister was called Willow too and so she wanted to stick her sister to the page instead. After we had pointed out that her sister would not fit on the page nor would this make the book practical to hang around her neck or carry in her pocket she decided it would be better to stick the leaf in instead.

We had an unusual bookmaker on Sunday too! Who was resting here whilst the last workshop was finishing.

 

After The rainy nights and Sunny days of the weekend, we had a cloudy day today, packing all the equipment away ready for more fairy fun and excitement at Camp Bestival! Off we go to spread more nature and magic to the little folk down south.

The end of Latitude 2013- with photographs

Due to more technicalitys here is Sundays update a little late!: On Sunday we had a gloriously sunny day of making Bug Bling in the Bug Bazaar and Fairy Books in the workshops. Bug Bling produced many children with sparkly arm/leg/hair/pram/whatever-you-wish decorations in four varieties: Violet ground beetle, Doc Leaf beetle, Wasp Beetle, and Ruby Tailed Wasp. The materials held out due to replenished stocks and the drop in workshop was a huge success, spreading the love of beetles around site. Fairy Books also proved very popular, as it provided children with a tiny place to store and record any flower, leaf or interesting piece of nature to treasure as their own. The fairy queen and the message tree were of course as popular as ever, by the end of Sunday afternoon the small Elder tree was covered in messages. A few photos of the Sunday makes can be found below.

On Monday we experienced high temperatures for the pack down, which produced a very speedy pack up in order for all crew to lie down in the shade! After a productive morning we managed to set off around lunchtime, with a set of tired but happy crew all in need of a good sleep. Now we are all settled at home the unloading and re-loading will soon begin for the next festival and adventure of the Fairyland Trust.

 Latitude 2013 has been a huge success for the Fairyland Trust, so thank you to all who came and visited us there! The festival has been three wonderful days full of busy workshops and drop ins which have equipped many happy children with their very own nature based make to enjoy and treasure. The crew have all been wonderful and had a brilliant time, enjoying the festivals music, beautiful surroundings, arts, performances and much more. It has all in all been a weekend to enjoy. The next festival the trust is attending and this blog will be following is The Secret Garden Party festival 2013, with the new Fairyland blogger. Stay tuned for daily updates from that one!

Bye from me! Amazon Rose- Fairyland Crew member and blogger for Latitude 2013.

Here are some photos I have quickly taken over the weekend... enjoy!

 

Latitude Moon

Fairyland Ben hanging up a message to the fairy's

Full moon after a sunny day at Latitude

The fairyland booth all set up

Flutterby makes

A few messages on the Elder tree

The Bug Bazaar tent

Fairyland Ayla with flutterby makes

Fairyland Ayla hiding behind makes

The Bug Bazaar and fairyland flags

Hard at work in the Bug Bazaar

The finished result!

Panorama of Latitude 2013 by the lake

Supporter signing in action

The woods in Latitude fairyland

The Elder message tree in all its glory

Fairy Queen of the forest

Fairy Queen reunion

Decorations in the Bug Bazaar tent

A happy owner of a complete set of bug bling!

The fairy Queen's baby yurt in the woods

To finish... a true message from Poppy