Christmas Weekend at The Lodge

A fittingly snowy last weekend at The Lodge in Aberfoyle this weekend. Intrepid Scotland were there too this week making some lovely Christmas Wreaths, along with young Kitty and Felix who kept us busy making wands. Also, David the amazing wood carver who kindly let Will have a go and Angela from AB Crafts - sooo clever with her adorable homemade crafts. All was very festive, especially as David Wilkie was keeping us entertained with his Kazoo!

Snow is falling, all around The Lodge!

Magickal Stall

 

 

 Will is let loose with the wood carving tools!

 

Wands waiting for witches and wizards

 

 

One of David's lovely wooden carvings - a quill made from wood, so gorgeous I had to get one!

 

 From left; Ailsa' ash, Iona's ash, Struan's willow and William's ash wands - most wanted power animals inscribed into the wands for extra magickal energy :-)

 

Another collection of lovely wands, mainly Kitty and Felix's wands - they will be busy magick making over the Christmas period then!

 

One prepared earlier by Will ready to sell, which it did :-)

 

Some fun cheeky face painting at the lodge, my first three adults (other than family) so nice to see everyone was feeling festively cheeky!

 

David Robertson managed to keep his snowman on all day whilst selling Christmas trees in the sleet outside, is it me or are there a lot of David's at The Lodge?

 

Merry Christmas everyone and best wishes to all for the New Year - a huge thank you to everyone that has joined in and supported Nix in Nature this year :-)



The Lodge Christmas Activities

Back at The Lodge again, weird how there seems to be certain favourite wand of the day each time we do the session. Everyone went for Ash today, even though the kids arrived at different times for a drop in session. 

Lily & Benjamin wanted enormous wands - more like staffs really! Lily's is really festive and Benjamin clearly wanted his wand to keep an eye on things!

Michael and his older brother Ben decorated these gems, infusing their wands with power animal magic too :-). 

 

Adam made this lovely wand (after sinking in imaginary quick sand a few times), then they were all off to make Christmas magic and scare away any snakes, just in case there happened to be any in the chilly forest!?

 

 

Ash wands were used apparently to protect people from poisonous snakes, native Americans wore ash leaves in their moccasins and baby cradles were made from ash wood too.

 

Face painting was a bit quieter this week as the weather was quite dreich outside, but Scarlett opted for a lovely Rudolf the red nosed reindeer, Luca a dinosaur and 'Spiderman' for Adam.



The Lodge Christmas Activities

Just warming up for Christmas with a wand session and festive face painting at The Lodge Visitor Centre in Aberfoyle.

Katie was whizzing about all day while her Dad was busy getting all the Christmas trees ready for sale, so she joined us to make this lovely holly wand to make her whizzing about more magical

Sunday was face painting, Rose went for a butterfly face, Robin a small panda, Elidh a flower spray and Darcey designed her own smiley face. My favourite was this one, being that it was the 1st December :-).

Cara went for Santa's eight Reindeer flying through a frosty Christmas Eve night sky.
(Do not use image for Facebook thanks).

Upcoming Events at The Lodge in Aberfoyle

Forestry Commission 'Light Up the Forest'

What a brilliantly cold, crisp night! Perfect for the Forestry Commission's first 'Light Up the Forest's event in Aberfoyle. I was lucky enough to be invited to help out and offer face painting for the little ones and I managed 15 faces and four tattoos type paintings so hopefully I am getting faster and still maintaining the quality :-).

The kids went mainly for foxes and wildcats, a wolf, an alien with a third eye, a pink cat, a skull that had been shot in the head, and two Darth Maul's! I hadn't done that one before, so Will came to the rescue with the phone - also with crowd control!

We just about had time to nip around to see the illuminated waterfall, gorgeous!

Autumnal tree - can you spot the hare?

Waterfall of the Little Fawn, Aberfoyle.

Spooky mirror people in the deep, deep dark woods.... 

 

Colour changing tree sculpture.

The Bat Conservation Trust Collection Total

Thank you to all who joined in and supported us in raising money for the Bat Conservation Trust over the Hallowe'en period, especially Cobleland Campsite, Forest Hills and Tigh Mor. See post below for what we got up to.

Together we managed to raise £80.27 plus there is £10 so far in the bat badge collection box :-)

For more information about how your kind donations will be used have a look at the Bat Conservation Trust's website and follow and like them on Facebook.

Nighty night bats, see you next year :-)

All Hallows Eve at Tigh Mor

Unbelievably the rain held off for the two hours so that we could all enjoy our Batty Halloween Walk at Tigh Mor, our last bat walk for the season. We had earlier been making magic wands and Charlotte kindly did a rain spell for us so thanks Charlotte :-)

Thank you to all those that joined us today to help raise money for the Bat Conservation Trust. We will update everyone on the final count next week.  There were 16 magic wand makers, 9 getting their faces painted and a whopping 39 on the walk.

 Charlotte and Olivia show off their painted faces, a self designed pink cat and Olivia went for a tiger (again).  Other faces were a vampire and his wife, Frankenstein, butterflies and cats.

 

 

Charlotte's wand was made from Rowan, the best for protection so great for Halloween. All were amazingly creative and individual :-)

To celebrate the Celtic New Year we had a few tricks and treats up our sleeve for this bat walk, the bats by the way were staying in if not already in their bat caves for a snooze though. Some excellent costumes and stories by those attending. Some had to earn their treats as they used to do traditionally, so there were a few jokes kicking around too, mostly from Sam, one of which was, "how do you get a tissue to dance? Put a bit of boogie in it!"

 Death.......... just there to accompany you to the other realm!

 

 Having to resort to wellies instead of my fluffy boots! I'm trying to represent where this custom originated, with the Celts on Samhain or Summer's end. They were said to wear masks, especially animal masks to confuse mischievous spirits and faery folk who could easily slip into our realm when the veil between worlds is at their thinnest on this day.

 

 

'Death' helps Stephen the bat find lots of moths the size of children to eat for his dinner!

There were hand made pendants with protective rowan berries and elder beads for the best dressed and best spooky tales, a few apple and divining games and everyone celebrated the Celtic New Year by placing a piece of ash while releasing something unwanted in their lives in order to start afresh. We had to remind the little ones that it didn't mean getting rid of your annoying brother or sister!

 Batty Pumpkin

 

 Thanks Lesley from Cobleland Campsite for the brilliant cat and owl pumpkin.

 

Pumpkins were an extension of the mask, to scare off unwanted spirits. They would have been carved from neeps or spuds though before the Irish travelled to America taking their customs with them. Pumpkins are easier to carve though :-)

Batty Halloween Walk at Forest Hills

Well it was still raining, but we went ahead with the last bat walk of the season at Forest Hills. This one had a spooky twist as Hallowe'en is coming up giving people ideas and traditions to do on Thursday. We played traditional games and divination with apples with a few tricks and treats along the way. Thanks to all those that came along to help raise money for the Bat Conservation Trust :-)

Ken the bat perfectly demonstrates how to eat Peter the moth using echo location. 'Death' or the Grim Reaper is a constant distractor for young Peter though :-)

 

Windy Wet Rafts at Tigh Mor

We were saved by the gilly hut today being able to get creative under cover.  It was yet another wet day but that didn't put off the young raft makers at Tigh Mor!

Jacob's Jolly Roger and Joshua's Viking battling out the weather.

 oops, Jakob's Victini takes a tumble! Below shows his excellent sailor (which survived).

 

Sophie's The Jolly Roger after a speedy session down the river.

Tigh Mor Soggy Bat Walk

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us on the soggy bat walk at Tigh Mor! We charged half price due to the rain, but I think we still all had fun. Unfortunately the bats were staying in the trees for the night, probably wise and laughing at us lot in the rain trying to find them!

Andy, probably our most keenest bat ever, who actually nearly took off with his wings and not at all deterred by the rain!!

Tigh Mor Rafts & Crafts

Four rafts and a magick wand this week at Tigh Mor....

The adorable Anna made this (probably most ever decorated) Hazel wand. Amongst the gems and ribbons you can see that Anna used magickal Theban script writing and a Celtic Ogham alphabet symbol for Hazel which will help enhance her already creative skills even more! Her wand is also infused with the magic from the water faeries or Kelpies, love it :-)

Here's Kate's fabulous T1 

Kate's brother Fraser designed this brilliant raft, calling it 'Stringy' - of course! 

Anna's older brother's Jamie and Rob designed J.M Rocket and The Grassinator, I'm sure you can tell which is which! Both looked great on Loch Achray. 

Wacky Forth Races

 

 

Just two rafts on this gloriously sun-shiny day, but sister's Ellen and Alexandra fought it out on the river with their amazing rafts.

Ellen's winning raft 'I Dunno' complete with sailors.

'I Dunno' takes the winning position at the finish line!

Alexandra's 'Perfect' boat had a great start but alas, it was caught in the trees! 

How amazing is this leafy sail (put together by Mum) :-)