Muddy Memories in West Sussex
With the most amazing spring in memory coming to an end and summer arriving you’d be forgiven for forgetting just how wet winter was. Do you remember? It felt like it rained constantly from October to March!
One of our new after school clubs started in September 2019, on a Thursday at Waterfield Primary School in Crawley. After a few weeks the Head asked us if we’d like to start running lunchtime sessions at the school too. We were delighted to run the sessions but by the time we got to February we couldn’t believe how consistently wet the weather had been!
We worked out it only hadn’t rained twice out of the 15 odd times we’d been there! In true Outdoors Project spirit however we adapted what we did every week whether by popping our shelters up for Harry Potter Wand Whittling, keeping our games fast and fun with our inflatable T-Rex or by rigging up tarps to protect the fire and keep the kids sheltered when they were toasting marshmallows. The kids loved the sessions and the school were wonderful, bringing out a load of wellies from lost property so the kids could leave their school shoes in the dry and get stuck in!
February half term came around and it chucked it down almost every day. I was leading in Buckingham Park in Shoreham and Kieran was in Victoria Park in Worthing. After each day’s clubs we’d meet at Lancing Manor and swap all the kit over and have a little debrief about our respective days, after day two I asked Kieran how the park was holding up as it can get a little water-logged, Kieran said “well you basically can’t see any grass anymore, there’s only mud!”
Our whole team agree that there's something about charging around in the rain, about having a great time in weather that keeps lots of people indoors. You feel like you've discovered a little secret, it's a little triumph in the face of adversity and you can see it in the way the kids always seem to come together as a team more and revel in it.
We get asked all the time by understandably concerned parents “what do you do if it rains?” and we always assure them that we just adapt and crack on. Learning to have a great time whatever the weather is so much of what we’re about. If you wait for guaranteed sun in this country you’ll be waiting forever, we never stop for rain! When a parent comes to collect their kid and they're drenched but beaming you know you've done a good job.
We can’t wait to get back out there, come rain or shine.
