30 Days Wild Final Thoughts

On the 15th, I gave you the mid-point breakdown of what I've been up for #30DaysWild. Well, here is the 16th to the 30th!

June 16th: T-Rex Hunting

Scary rain

It rained pretty much all day on the sixteenth. In Shropshire, we even had thunderstorms. My partner and I got caught out in one, while in town picking up storage boxes for his business. While delightfully refreshing, we got soaked in the short walk from the shop to van. When we pulled into our drive and turned the engine off, the rain hitting the roof of the van reminded me of that scene in Jurassic Park when the T-Rex gets revealed for the first time. So we stayed in the van a little minute longer, just to make sure no T-Rexes burst onto our street.

June 17th: Cricket Research

Effective research

With the persisting rain and sogginess, it occurred to me on our walk with the dog that I couldn't hear the crickets. Which made me wonder, where do they go when it rains? This lead to me doing some research when I got home. Turns out, I have been calling grasshoppers crickets. While very similar, the bugs I'd been watching and taking pictures of were definitely grasshoppers. So I looked those up instead.

My findings: when it rains, grasshoppers hide in your sheds. Who'd have thunk?!

June 18th: Magic Painting

Where the magic happens

Another soggy day, coupled with low mood. I decided on doing something artsy. Between Christmas and Birthdays, I have amassed a number of artsy books despite having very little artistic skill! Adult colouring books, sticker books, and a magic painting book. The latter of which being dinosaur themed. Maybe it was the rain and the residual image of T-Rex stomping across, I decided on the magic dinosaur painting book.

For those that do not know, magic painting requires a paintbrush and water. That's it. You wet the brush then run it over the black patterns within the picture to release the colour. I have to say, it is hecka soothing. And the results make it look like you have some artistic vision and that it was all entirely on purpose!

To go with my painting session, I turned up the Parov Stelar for some sunshine vibes. Despite not going outside at all on the 18th, I felt plenty wild! Seriously Parov Stelar have some awesome tunes. It's like old timey, club music - all of which almost sound like the Mos Eisley Cantina song. It's the sort of music you cannot be sad listening to, which is just what I needed. Soothing with the magic paint and cheering up with the tunes.

June 19th: Failed Fairy Ring Hunt and Big Wild Weekend Concert

A fine way to spend your Friday evening

With all the rain over the previous few days, I thought it would be a sure thing finding fairy rings. There were none in my garden and none could be seen at the dog park we visit. A friend kept tagging me in hers, but I kept coming up empty.

It was a good job the Big Wild Weekend concert was that night! The line up was very much my vibe - KT Tunstall, Katie Melua, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor are all musicians I have followed at some point in my life. Murder on the Dancefloor was a go-to SingStar hit, Black Horse and the Cherry Tree has always been a family favourite, and Melua's Pictures album was a favourite during my first year of university. (Studying early Hollywood meant I was constantly hearing about all the names mentioned in Mary Pickford, so it was constantly in my head!)

They are all artists I have somewhat neglected over recent years, as you do with musicians. So I have really enjoyed rediscovering these artists and learning new favourites from them.

Also, I want Cal Spellman's earrings. They are gorgeous.

June 20th: Long Walk and Community Day

Check out all those shinies!

This long walk wasn't exactly planned. I needed to pop to the local shop to finish off a couple birthday presents being picked up later that day. However, our Sainsburys Local has taken to closing the shop for an hour or so at a time to restock the shelves safely. Totally understandable and I applaud them on taking their staff's safety seriously. It just meant I could not pick up some sweets from there.

The last time we got caught out by this, we turned around and went home. It was a sign from the universe that I did not need snacks. (Ha, I got them a day later.) This time, however, I was buying for someone else (*cough* and myself). So we wandered into town. The first time since lockdown.

As a bonus, it was the Pokemon Go Community Day for Weedles. Which meant we got to catch lots of virtual bugs - some of which were shiny. I now have a mint green Beedrill in my collection and you have no idea how happy this makes me. Beedrill has always been one of my favourites - to the point where I rewrote the words of Man! I Feel Like A Woman to Man! I Feel Like A Beedrill. (And no, I do not remember what any of those changed lyrics were.)

The long walk into town was lovely. It may have been muggy and close, and we were definitely sweating buckets by the time we got home, it was just nice to do something so normal. Before lockdown, we would quite often wander into the town centre. We live on the outskirts of our town but it's not so great a distance that it cannot be walked. It takes about twenty-thirty minutes, depending on how waddley you're feeling and how old the foster dog is. As lockdown restrictions have been eased over the month of June, it was weird to see how many people were out and about. The few times I have gone to the town centre for whatever reason, it has been a ghost town. This day there were shoppers, people out walking, friends gathering in a socially distanced way.

Personally, I think it is waaaayyyy too soon to be lifting the lockdown as much as we are; but it was still quite nice to see more than one lonely soul out and about. Just so long as they respect my llama space.

Bonus wild find: finally found some evidence of fairies!

Ok, so I added the fairy...

June 21st: Toasting Marshmallows

Yummy

The solstice, the longest day of light in the year. Always a day to be celebrated. My partner and I were busy for most of the day but we managed to come together for dinner and a summery treat. It was USA week in Lidl and there was a massive bag of toasting marshmallows. To me, that seemed like the perfect way to celebrate the solstice.

Enjoy the extra sunlight with a fire and burnt sugar.

We do not have a good place for a bonfire, or anything to put on said bonfire, so we used tealights. This was a little problematic as it was super windy and they kept blowing out. Our wild plans got derailed by the weather. We ended up toasting and eating them indoors, which was a shame on the celebration front but sensible on the windy front.

I hope that next year we can have a proper bonfire of some description and toast marshmallows properly.

June 22nd: Nature Rainbow

ROYGBIV

This was a prompt from Carole: take a picture of nature representing each colour of the rainbow and make a collage. My collage came a day late, but I got my rainbow pictures! True to my character, I made things difficult for myself by going rainbow hunting on our evening walk. The bugs were going to bed, some of the flowers closed, and it was a little too over cast to count the sky as my blue. Which was a pain because it was blue I was struggling for!

There were plenty of purples and greens. Red was found early on and I was struggling for orange for a while. But as I was taking a picture of an orange leaf on the ground, my partner found cinnabar moth caterpillars on ragwort. Doubly exciting! It fulfilled my orange requirement and they are Carole's favourite!

The missing blue came after having braved nettles and brambles to hunt for bluebells. Sadly, we had clearly missed the window for those as the spot where they'd been seen a few days prior was empty of the blue flower. Fingers were crossed for the river suddenly looking cartoonishly blue. It was not. It was, however, warm enough still to venture into the river itself. Got to love wearing pumps with no socks and short-shorts! The wade was both refreshing and fruitful. I stumbled across some little blue flowers, tucked near the river bank. After precariously taking a picture, while juggling shoes and my phone, I looked up and saw a whole bunch of them right next to the path. Typical. I still went for the river picture. Not only was it better, it took more effort.

June 23rd: Outdoor Office and Curating Playlists

Best office view

With the sun finally peeking out from behind the rain clouds, spending my morning in the garden was a must. I made my collage and curated a #30DaysWild playlist. I was inspired by the concert. Plus, I love making playlists, I am honestly surprised I had not done this sooner. It's 50 songs long so far, a mix of Disney, artists who played on the Wildlife Trust concert, and songs with a tenuous link to wildlife.

Please make suggestions for more tracks - I love discovering new music. And feel free to listen to it yourself. It's why I make playlists.

June 24th: Long Evening Walk

Anyone else have Toes in their head?

A few days prior, I was feeling grumpy about the rain. In true British summer style, the weather had swung to the opposite end of the scale. Our morning walk was warm enough to not even entertain the idea of a post-lunch walk. So we opted for a nice, longer evening walk to help us cool down and relax. It was still super warm, so by the time we got to the river both the dog and I waded right in!

Ok, so I stopped to take my shoes off first, but you get my point.

It was lovely and a very effective means of cooling myself down. Fun fact: the most effective places to put cold water when you want to cool down are your wrists and the back of your neck. I did not much fancy sticking my face in the river, but plunging my hands was delightful.

June 25th: Eggshells

New life

I spent a lot of the 25th sewing. I was on a roll with a birthday project and was still struggling in the heat. We ate our lunch outside, as a conscious effort to get some fresh air. By our table (which is actually an aquarium stand) there was a little half-shell from something freshly hatched. Twitter informed me that it probably a pigeon egg, as they breed throughout the season. Regardless, it was wonderful to know there was some new life in the world. It was a little bemusing how it ended up on our patio though, without a tree nearby to fall from! Sadly, it will remain a mystery.

June 26th: River Princess Picks Litter

Ethereal River Princess

Another scorcher of a day. We planned an evening walk. This time I dressed for the occasion. I changed into my swimming costume after dinner, my converse which are now designated river shoes, and an easy-to-remove skirt. This river wade was not going to be hindered by trying to keep my clothes dry! And with the fella in tow, I was hopeful to get some awesome river princess pictures.

The river was a little busier than the last time and had clearly been busy in the time since our last visit. How could I tell? Litter. Litter, litter, everywhere. We had not come prepared to pick litter but that did not stop me from fishing out a deodorant can from the river bed, a Carling can from the plant life, and a few other bits and pieces. I may have even glared at the two lads drinking beer nearby when it looked like they were about to litter.

Turns out they were just figuring out where to leave their full beers while they cooled in the river, but I was fully prepared to tell them off if they decided to litter. Can you picture it? A weirdo in a bikini and converse telling off two lads in their late teens for littering?

Pick. Up. Your. Damn. Litter.

June 27th: A to Z of British Wildlife

Can you complete an A to Z?

As it was Carole's birthday, I decided it was a must to do one of her challenges. I picked out: make an A to Z of British plant and wildlife. As you would expect, some of them were really easy. A good amount of them all but filled themselves in. Then it got to the Qs, Xs, Ys, and Zs. They took a little more brain power!

Admittedly, I did just give up on X and Z and provide my patent rogue answers. (Xanadu and Zebra Crossing if you can't quite make them out.)

I actually really enjoy making A to Zs. There was a Taskmaster task from the first season where they needed to come up with an ingredient for every letter of the alphabet and make the Taskmaster a meal from it. Naturally, their concoctions were insane and barely edible. But I had a go (at just the list) and actually thought about what meal I could make from the various ingredients. I think in the end I went for a three course meal, including warthog fajitas for a main and a golden syrup sponge for pudding served with a zombie cocktail!

Point being, I find these sort of puzzles really satisfying. Especially when you complete them properly. I challenge you to have a go, see if you can better my X and Z efforts!

June 28th: Facebook Party Quiz

Is it really a lockdown activity if you haven't involved a quiz in some way, shape, or form?

I'll be the first to admit that I do have a tendency of making my quizzes super hard. Completely by accident, I assure you! When I worked at the pub, I was always given the film and TV round to curate and got told on more than one occasion that I needed to make them easier. Is it not common knowledge that the series finale of M*A*S*H was the most watched episode of any TV show? (True at the time of writing, no idea if it still holds the title.)

Anyway, having a wild theme meant my questions weren't going to be so niche to my knowledge. I had to do some research for it, something I was doing between filling in the letters of my A to Z!

Hosting on Facebook meant I could spread the rounds out through the day and get them all nicely scheduled ahead of time. I opted for five rounds of five questions, all worth one point to make life simple. My rounds were: Wild People, Animals, Plants, Movies, and Anything Goes! With GIF rounds between the questions because I love a good quiz.

I may have only had three participants, but it was fun reading their answers. Especially Caius' because he too opts for the rogue option when unaware of the real answer. There were some excellent GIF submissions too. Something that always surprises me is when people struggle with answers that I thought were genuinely simple. But it just highlights that everyone has different minds and hold different importance on information. It's fascinating.

I may be tempted to do more quizzes in the future!

June 29th: ID Three Unknown Plants

Whooo are you?

My last Carole task! Find three plants on my dog walk which I cannot name and ID them when I get home. The first part of that was easy. I can name very few plants which aren't ones I intend on eating. Living in a rural (and pretty wealthy) area, lots of our neighbours have glorious gardens full of colour and wonderful plants. There was plenty to choose from. And loads of blue ones! Which was strange as I so struggled to find blue flowers on my rainbow hunt.

IDing them was going to be a little more difficult. I wasn't sure google would be able to interpret my "purple flower bit like a pansy but not really" level of description. So I used a different tool at my disposal: the 30 Days Wild Community. After posting my pictures to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, my plants were successfully identified!

I'd snapped: violas, begonias, and blue delphiniums.

June 30th: Garden Family Fun

Drumming fun in the *ahem* sun

My final act of wildness was to spend some family time in my aunt's garden - socially distanced of course. It was wonderful getting to spend time with my cousins, Nana, aunt and uncle. We did my quiz, watched my cousin's son potter, play, and discover the drums, and just generally chill outside. The weather couldn't quite make up its mind if it wanted to be cold or muggy. Somehow, despite the constant cloud cover, I got sun burnt! Pale kid problems. Who needs an exotic, tropical holiday to get a tan when you can get sun burnt on an overcast, grey day in June!

Although not the wildest act, this was the perfect day to spend my final day wild. Surrounded by the people I love in the fresh air. Lunch featured homegrown veggies and everything!

#30DaysWild done for another year

I have really enjoyed #30DaysWild this year. Having some ideas and planning definitely helps it be more than just I took the dog for a walk. Hopefully this time next year, there won't be a pandemic and lockdown so I can plan a few bigger adventures! However, despite restrictions and general coronanxiety, having some designated wild time each day has helped with my mental health.

I suffered a dip this month, job hunting has me feeling lost. Having something to look forward to each day really helped stop me from retreating to bed and doing nothing. Even if it was just some magic painting (my new favourite soothing activity), it is better than retreating to my sadness nest.

Getting out into the wild helps blow away the cobwebs. Breathing in the fresh air helps to smooth you out and calm you down. Nature really does have a healing affect and I am grateful to the Wildlife Trust for giving me the inspiration to get out every day in June. Having a dog, we do get out most days but I hope to keep my wild vision on and appreciate what I walk by more.

What has been your favourite random act of wildness? Do you have any ideas to share for next year? What big adventures do you want to go on? Lemme know, below!

Listening to: #30DaysWild