Foraging is a great way to reduce anxiety, practice mindfulness and stay healthy. With many supermarket shelves being stripped of produce it is also a great way to replenish your food stores with tasty, nutritious, sustainable and easy to find wild edibles.
As long as the family and I are symptom free foraging walks will carry on as before. As we are outdoors it is a low risk activity, but I will be reducing group size as per government guidelines for the safety of my customers. If anyone has booked on an upcoming walk and has either any symptoms of the Coronavirus, self-isolating due to health issues, or are just concerned, I am happy for you to postpone and can give you a gift voucher valid for two years. As a family we feel it is our social responsibility to self-isolate as much as possible so to avoid becoming carriers to the vulnerable. We haven’t been attending our usual Home Education groups for the last month, we have cancelled this week’s family holiday, and will postpone any future attendance at Cub Scouts and social gatherings. We still need to visit supermarkets because the kids won’t use leaves as toilet roll and we don’t have a stash of foraged home brew wine! I wanted to include this information so all my guests can make an informed decision about the risk level of currently attending a foraging walk.
Hello everyone, I would like to update you all on our current plans for foraging walks and gin workshops. I am very passionate about teaching foraging and have been really missing sharing my knowledge with others.
Whilst some restrictions have been lifted, opinion is still divided about what is safe. At this moment I cannot find a way to return to teaching and provide the best possible experience whilst keeping up with the social distancing guidelines. To allow me to comprehensively teach details on the various wild foods we find on our walks, my guests need to come in close whilst I point out the various identification features. The photo illustrates how intimate my walks are, and how it would be impossible to teach even just a few people whilst keeping two meters apart.
Teaching foraging and running gin workshops is my only job, so I do not take my decisions lightly. We also have a vulnerable person in our household, so I need to do everything I can to protect them. Therefore, with these points in mind at the moment I do not believe it would be safe for me to encourage guests to join me on a foraging walk.
I will continue to monitor the news, listen to the opinions of the experts and will reopen for business when it is safe for everyone. Currently my thoughts is that I will return to teaching in stages, initially by running private foraging walks for 2 people from the same household, and will review how efficient this is and continue from there. Fingers crossed things will be change in time for the mushroom season! In the meantime I am cooking up various foraged preserves and pickles to give out as tasters on future walks.
Stay safe, keep washing those hands, and I look forward to teaching again soon.
July 2020
We are reopening in August with some changes to our walks to keep everyone safe.
Group sizes will be limited to 6 adults.
Social distancing maintained during the walk
We would appreciate everyone bringing their own hand sanitizer to use when needed.
Pick your own samples to study rather than passing them around.
No communal cook up at the end.
Bring your own basket/bag to gather ingredients during the walk to recreate a wild cook up at home, and a notepad for preparation and recipe suggestions.
We are also offering private walks for household who are isolating and wish to avoid public events. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. As a household we have been taking this pandemic very seriously and have remained isolated since day one of lockdown.
All previous gift vouchers and unused tickets will still be valid for an extra year. We appreciate some of you are still shielding or may be struggling to fit everything in as we slowly get back to 'normal'.
2nd November 2020
Closed.
April 2021
As before here is how we will be running our walks to help keep everyone safe.
Group sizes will be limited to 15 adults.
Social distancing maintained during the walk
We would appreciate everyone bringing their own hand sanitizer to use when needed.
Pick your own samples to study rather than passing them around.
No communal cook up at the end.
Bring your own basket/bag to gather ingredients during the walk to recreate a wild cook up at home, and a notepad for preparation and recipe suggestions.
August 2021
The long awaited communial cook up at the end of our walks will return at the beginning of August!
As restrictions lift on 19th July we have made the descision to hold back and watch how it goes for a couple of weeks. The benefit of being a small family business is that we can decide what we feel is best for us.
Group sizes will be limited to 15 adults.
Everyone to bring their own plates and cutlery.
We would appreciate everyone bringing their own hand sanitizer to use when needed.