There is something about spring - the rise in temperature, the glimpses of sunshine - that makes me want to check out the tent! Ho-hum - It’s still too early for camping but the longer evenings are a great time to switch off the TV and do some outdoor activities.
And there is nothing that kids enjoy more than a camp fire. Especially when they help to make it! Invest in some fire lighting flints, which you strike to produce a spark. To master the art of lighting fires without using matches is challenging, frustrating and ultimately incredibly rewarding!
When the camp fire is cheerfully aglow, there is nothing more memorable than toasting marshmallows, telling group stories and singing the old favourites; “Quarter-masters store” or “What shall we do with the drunken sailor?” Scout web sites are brilliant sources of inspiration. Try
www.scoutingresources.org.uk/song_index.html
Another wonderful activity in the spring evenings is a twilight hike. Evenings have a different atmosphere; talk is quieter, hearing is sharper. There are lots of natural wonders to discuss. Talk to your child about how birds go to bed. Most roost, in trees, seeking safety from predators. You can discuss with your child how it is that a bird can sleep perched on tree branches and never fall off. Directly the bird has perched and taken a grip, certain muscles lock its claws, and so even in the deepest sleep the claws cannot relax. When the bird wakes up, it has to make a conscious effort before it can take flight.
Ducks and geese usually sleep on the water safe from their enemies. If the water is moving, they instinctively paddle in their sleep to keep themselves away from the shore.
Partridges sleep on the ground, huddled together for safety. They sleep with one ear open and at the first hint of trouble, they fly away.
Many of the smaller birds cuddle together at night in the eaves of houses – listen for the crooning of young house martins in the evening.
Night-birds, such as the owls, sleep by day and hunt at night. Usually the owl wakes up about an hour before sunset to hunt field mice in the hedges and over the fields.
Another creature that you commonly see in the evening is the bat. They hunt beetles and other insects. In the daytime they sleep hanging by their claws head-downward in the roofs of barns.
Of course, no evening hike would be complete without a look at the stars. The stars seem to circle over us during the night, but this is really because our earth turns round underneath them. The easiest group of stars to find is the Plough, and it is also the most useful because, in the northern half of the world, we can find north by it by following a line through the two outside stars.
And when the darkness closes in and you tuck your tired but happy child into bed, you will know that you have given them a memory to cherish the whole of their lives