On a beautiful summer’s day we welcomed three visitors from the Cassel who wanted to learn from us how to set up a similar service. Their initial experience on arriving at the site and entering the yurt? “So completely peaceful” and “so unexpected and overwhelming”, then “its about people and plants – and lovely to meet such special people – a genius loci*“. Lots of difficult stuff in check-in but the group’s understanding, strong support and feedback helped ground us for the day ahead.
After a comfort break we split into two groups – one to “smash and grab” trip for bread which someone (not naming Hils!) had forgotten for lunch and the others toured the site. So many fascinating things to admire – the Bug Hotel, fire pit, our amazing maze, the rain forest tunnel and, as always, finishing off on the slide!
On route our visitors gathered loads of ideas – the most important being that a yurt is an essential part of any therapy service! Lunch preparation and filling our pots with compost then planting the dwarf French beans kindly given to us by our gardening visitor, Sarah – who also gave us some great advice on what to plant and when 🙂
After a very filling and satisfying home-cooked lunch, we just squeezed in some ice-creams then started the clearing up. This was followed by more chatting to our visitors and some planning for next week. We finished with an early check out (another meeting had to be attended and chose our planticons for the day – from poppies and flowering thistles to wild flowers, and seedlings to oak trees were all chosen. Hot, tired, but going home with Greencare having worked its magic again 🙂
*the protective spirit of a place/ the prevailing character or atmosphere of a place