Posts tagged - Jubilee park

Nature in the city 3: A manmade ‘natural’ park

I’ve mentioned Leyton’s ‘Jubilee Park’ once or twice on this blog before. The first time was back in May, when Mushroom and I met the recycled kite maker (we’ve not seen him again since! Glad I took photos or I may have wondered whether he was real!). I mentioned him again more recently in an earlier Nature in the City post about picking blackberries.

This park used to simply be a large green space, with a tiny ‘typical’ children’s park in the corner. You know, swings, a slide etc… This year, along with several of the parks across the borough of Waltham Forest, it has been redesigned to encourage children to interact more with their natural surroundings. So, as well as a large area that remains as it was for the children to run around in, there are also ‘fallen’ trees to negotiate, wooden trampolines to jump on, ropes to help them swing across crocodile infested waters (well they are in our imagination!), rope snakes to ride on and hills of varying sizes to roll down (It’s possible that I like this even more than Mushroom does!)

Here are a few pictures of Mushroom making the most of this manmade ‘nature.’

I like this park and the others that are beginning to follow. It may be manmade, but Mushroom has always been quite cautious and before this was here, he needed a lot of encouragement to climb a tree, or roll down a big hill. The little trees and small hills here allowed him to build his confidence and he now does both without hesitation. His new found climbing confidence means I need to watch him a lot more closely these days!

What do you think? Is it a good idea to create more parks like this or should the council simply have left the space as it was before and let the children use their imaginations..? Please comment below, I’d love to hear your views, especially if you have similar parks in your area!

Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

I’m linking up with Coombe Mill‘s Country Kids blog linky with this series. To find out more and/or add your own, click on the image above.

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The recycled kite

Last week, Mushroom and I were playing in our recently refurbished ‘Jubilee park,’ an outdoor play area cultivated to encourage children to make use of their natural surroundings.

Jubilee park 0-7 play area

While playing on the little trampolines and running/sliding/rolling down the little man-made hills, created for this very purpose, we saw a kite flying in the near distance.

Jubilee park wooden trampoline

The man flying the kite noticed Mushroom’s interest, and deliberately lowered it, allowing Mushroom to chase it a while before bringing it down so that we could take a closer look.

Kite chasingOnce up close, we realised that the kite was made entirely out of recycled material! A recycling bin bag, some bamboo and an old sheet cut into strips. ‘Even the glue is all natural,’ he told us proudly, ‘I make it with flour and glue. This is a Jamaican kite.’ Mushroom nodded wisely. Grandma and Grandad are Jamaican, therefore Daddy is Jamaican, therefore he is Jamaican (and Nigerian, and British, but that’s for another post). I think he gets it. He recognises ‘Jamaican’ anyway. The man smiled kindly at us. ‘I’ll make you a lickle one, ‘ he promised, ‘to put in your pocket.’

I asked if he sold them and he said yes but then it started to rain and Mushroom was fussing so we headed off. As we walked away I realised something. ‘I never asked your name…’ My shout was lost on the wind, or so I thought.

Recycled Kite‘I’ll see you again!’ He shouted his promise across the field and we both nodded. We’ll see him again. When we do, we’ll find out where he sells his kites and whether he’s interested in making one for you, too!

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