7 days in the wood: Day 4 Woodwose Schools

Halesworth Edger Sewter School came today.  Just before they came, Becky introduced us to LOST WORDs – words no longer contained in children’s dictionaries. It wasn’t that they were judged as ‘no longer necessary but they’d fallen off the line, like the green bottles, as new words came in like Selfie in and Ivy out.

While talking, Paul on birds and bird watching from his hive of Elddis, a thought came to Becky: I wonder, could you, could you be the Woodwose, as you are actually, the wood warden.

35 Class V arrived up the track, walking from the school (It will be good for them, the teacher evidently said. How refreshing.).

Excuse me Paul, is that the toilet?
Yes, it’s a compost toilet, you have to site down
No i don’t sit down.
Well just read the instructions inside.
A minute or so later, a tap on Pauls shoulder.
Excuse me. Not sure I understand. Is the front where you pee?
Yes, that’s it. Sit down is best.

A minute or so later, tap on shoulder.
I managed it. But it was quite a challenge

They all got cold and enjoyed the scaves, coats, cardigans.
One asked me: Miss, is the woodwose hairy.
He sure is under his jeans.
What when he’s naked?
It was a stimulating double act, feeling the curiosity of the kids,

‘If you’re really really poor, and you dug a hole and make a house out of clay in the woods, would anyone find you?

The Woodwose gave us a list of birds, blak. blue jays, wrens, robins, wood pigeons, pheasants. ‘Here they all live in relative harmony, the rabbit with the squirrel. Because here there is plenty’.

Next time, we should give the teachers paper to write and draw on.