By Kate Hodges
04th May 2022
EVENT, DO EARTHY GOODNESS
Put those food scraps to good use – it’s International Compost Awareness Week! It might not sound like the most glamorous of events, but gardeners are besotted with this rich, frugal stuff, and making it is a satisfying way to recycle scraps and leftovers. Why not use it as a kickstarter for your composting? There’s a great little video about urban composting here – you can break down scraps in even the smallest of flats, or find a family-friendly guide to composting here. Or run through more fun activities to try here – worm composting is a classic! Find more of our ideas for gardening with kids – including making a sunflower tunnel – here.
EVENT AND MAKE EIDY RIDERS
Mark the end of Ramadan at a huge party in Trafalgar Square this Saturday. Hosted by Mistah Islah, traditional and contemporary acts taking part include Baha Yetin Sufi Ensemble, Nafees Ifran & Qalandar Qawwali Band, and the Dur Dur Band, while there’ll be stunning Eid costumes, global food stalls, storytelling, mehndi and face paitning, and sports activities courtesy of Muslim Girls Fencing and Sisterhood FC. Find out more here. Can’t make it to London? Why not try some Eid-inspired crafting? We love this gorgeous, mid-century style ceramic hand dish, this cheery origami star necklace and this super-stylish good deeds tree, which will look beautiful perched on a window sill all year.
EVENT, MAKE, DO SPINE TINGLING
Feeling prickly? No wonder! It’s Hedgehog Awareness Week, your chance to do something to help our spiny friends. A new report suggests that numbers of the prickly characters have declined by more than half since 2000, and there’s been a 97% fall since the 1950s. So this is a good time to make your garden hedgehog friendly or be a little more pro-active, and contact your local council or tool hire company to ask them to use British Hedgehog Preservation Society stickers on their strimmers. Why not take the opportunity to try some hedgehog crafts too?
EVENT WEIRD SCIENCE
Be Curious is Leeds University’s annual open event, which takes place on Saturday and showcases how research is making a difference to people’s lives. Find out more about the world-changing work being done with a day of free, fun activities including a maker space, maker kits, performances, workshops and tours. Get hands-on in the Tinker Space, find out about the research that’s enabling sustainable live, take an immersive trip into a theatre show about woodlands, discover what it’s like to live without a toilet, build a comet and – most excitingly - meet Percy Pig! Find the full programme here. Free
EVENT GREEN FINGERS
Keep the Maytime joy going at Cecil Sharp House’s annual May In A Day festival this Saturday. Join in maypole dancing to live music with a callery, or try folk-inspired arts and crafts. Outside, there are activities in the garden, led by Permaculture. The venue is beautiful, and the organisation does sterling work preserving UK folk traditions – it’s an excellent opportunity to discover what the place has to offer. Ticketed.
EVENT BRIGHTON EARLY
Every year, Brighton Festival pushes boundaries a little further. This year, the guest directors are Marwa Al-Sabouni and Tristan Sharps, who have put together a diverse, fun series of events. This Sunday’s extraordinary Children’s Parade celebrates the Rebuilding and Hope, celebrating the strength and resilience of our communities, and what we can achieve when we listen and build together. Elsewhere, enjoy exhilarating outdoor dance performances, join a jazz-and-funk fuelled trip into the woods for 3-7 year-olds or sing in an on-street ‘massaoke’! Mainly ticketed, but with plenty of free shows and happenings. Until May 29.
EVENT SCOT FREE!
Edinburgh International Children’s festival runs for a colourful, joyous week from Saturday. Curated by artists, it brings the best theatre and dance in the world to the city. Catch shows from around the world; puppetry, comedy, immersive and funny events that are performed in venues across the Scottish capital. The event opens with a free day of activities at the Museum of Scotland.
WHAT WE’RE READING How will we count the cost of having a baby during a pandemic? ”[A] charity, Pregnant Then Screwed, has marked two years since lockdown with a film warning that the rise in postnatal depression will be huge; a mental health epidemic yet to come. People who gave birth during the pandemic shared their experiences, one saying she’d left the hospital with PTSD. As someone who thought a lot about their first birth for many years after, and only now has the distance to judge my flimsy mental health in the time that followed, I can feel that threat keenly.” Read more here
