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10 Unusual Activities to Try in 2011 (part 2)
If the first part of 10 Unusual Things to Try in 2011 left you slathering like an excited dog, then wipe your mouth and jump aboard, my new year advernturers. It's part two.
5. Join the Growing Community
There’s something satisfying about growing your own food. Whilst it may be slighty more difficult to grow your own lambrini or pot noodle, local people in Hackney have created a social enterprise concerned with improving the world’s damaged food system through re-localising the growing and selling of organic fruit and vegetables. Growing Communities also offer the opportuninity for people interested in gardening and growing to get involved. So if your fingers are green, or you are just very keen (nice), then throw on your dungarees and birkenstocks and head to the garden! Tally ho!
4. Become a Flying Trapeze
In the half day circus skills course, you have the chance to see if you made a grave error turning down the ringmaster when he came a-calling. With a variety of different circus skills to learn, including tight-rope walking, unicycling, juggling and stilt walking, you may discover your secret calling. And the best thing is, there are no clowns is sight. The course doesn’t say anything about providing spangly leotards or flesh coloured tight, so it’s best that you bring your own or check on the website.
3. Carve your own didgeridoo
A useful skill to have (you know if you were caught in the middle of the outback with nothing but a sharp knife and a need to make as much noise as possible so that it could traverse the trees and find help), Digeridoo maker, Clive Wilson offers a two day course, as well as a free didgeridoo-playing lesson! Bonanaza! All materials and equipment is provided; you just have to bring some heavy boots. And just think, once it’s made, you’ll have a splendid instrument that’ll demonstrate that you ain’t no “bludger” (lazy person, layabout, somebody who always relies on other people to do things) as well as providing hours of harmonious music for you and “cobbers” (mates). Too right!
2. Get mucky with pigs
Have you ever envisaged yourself as a pig-keeper? Me either, but only because I was never exposed to our trottered friends, except as sausages. But, for those of you who have a deep love of pigs (not too much of a love, though - I think that’s illegal) then now’s your chance to get up close with a pig-keeping course. You’ll spend the morning meeting the pigs, hanging with the pigs, posing with the pigs and feeding, cleaning and mowing straw with the pigs. You’ll also receive a certificate as a memento of your time as a pig-keeper, although I’m not sure if you can put it on your CV as a genuine qualification. So if pigs are your thing, whack on your willies and get on down to the farm!
1. Forrage For Food
Cavemen had it going on! Be it hunting, gathering or eating raw wildebeest; the life of a caveman was like one big party. Nowadays, we buy our food from shops, our clothes from shops, our pencil sharpeners from shops; we don’t seem to go and actually get stuff anymore. And fetching milk from the corner shop in your PJs doesn’t count. But how would you like to be able to say that you did go and find that rare, wild mushroom and picked it with your own fair hand? How would you like to make jam out of the gooseberries you found growing behind a hedge? Fergus Drenning, forager extraordinaire offers a foraging course for those who would rather spend the day hampering through the countryside, like a squirrel looking for acorns. So come on, little squirrels (and big burly hedgehogs), let’s go a-forraging!
5. Join the Growing Community
There’s something satisfying about growing your own food. Whilst it may be slighty more difficult to grow your own lambrini or pot noodle, local people in Hackney have created a social enterprise concerned with improving the world’s damaged food system through re-localising the growing and selling of organic fruit and vegetables. Growing Communities also offer the opportuninity for people interested in gardening and growing to get involved. So if your fingers are green, or you are just very keen (nice), then throw on your dungarees and birkenstocks and head to the garden! Tally ho!
4. Become a Flying Trapeze
In the half day circus skills course, you have the chance to see if you made a grave error turning down the ringmaster when he came a-calling. With a variety of different circus skills to learn, including tight-rope walking, unicycling, juggling and stilt walking, you may discover your secret calling. And the best thing is, there are no clowns is sight. The course doesn’t say anything about providing spangly leotards or flesh coloured tight, so it’s best that you bring your own or check on the website.
3. Carve your own didgeridoo
A useful skill to have (you know if you were caught in the middle of the outback with nothing but a sharp knife and a need to make as much noise as possible so that it could traverse the trees and find help), Digeridoo maker, Clive Wilson offers a two day course, as well as a free didgeridoo-playing lesson! Bonanaza! All materials and equipment is provided; you just have to bring some heavy boots. And just think, once it’s made, you’ll have a splendid instrument that’ll demonstrate that you ain’t no “bludger” (lazy person, layabout, somebody who always relies on other people to do things) as well as providing hours of harmonious music for you and “cobbers” (mates). Too right!
Have you ever envisaged yourself as a pig-keeper? Me either, but only because I was never exposed to our trottered friends, except as sausages. But, for those of you who have a deep love of pigs (not too much of a love, though - I think that’s illegal) then now’s your chance to get up close with a pig-keeping course. You’ll spend the morning meeting the pigs, hanging with the pigs, posing with the pigs and feeding, cleaning and mowing straw with the pigs. You’ll also receive a certificate as a memento of your time as a pig-keeper, although I’m not sure if you can put it on your CV as a genuine qualification. So if pigs are your thing, whack on your willies and get on down to the farm!
1. Forrage For Food
Cavemen had it going on! Be it hunting, gathering or eating raw wildebeest; the life of a caveman was like one big party. Nowadays, we buy our food from shops, our clothes from shops, our pencil sharpeners from shops; we don’t seem to go and actually get stuff anymore. And fetching milk from the corner shop in your PJs doesn’t count. But how would you like to be able to say that you did go and find that rare, wild mushroom and picked it with your own fair hand? How would you like to make jam out of the gooseberries you found growing behind a hedge? Fergus Drenning, forager extraordinaire offers a foraging course for those who would rather spend the day hampering through the countryside, like a squirrel looking for acorns. So come on, little squirrels (and big burly hedgehogs), let’s go a-forraging!
And there we have it. Ten unusual things to try in 2011. Now go out and try them! You know you want to....
By Amelia Jane Murray
By Amelia Jane Murray
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