This Easter we are running a writing competition. We want to hear about a moment in nature that moved you. Maybe it was a special encounter with an animal or a bird that lingered longer than usual, a weather event or plants and trees?
We want to hear how it made you feel and why it is still so special to you as a memory. Rebecca has shared some of her favourite moments below and what inspired this Easter competition.
HOW TO ENTER
To enter please send us no more than 500 words by 12th April to info@forivor.com (they can be illustrated if you wish but this will not affect our judging of the winner).
Competition is open to adults and children alike so write together or individually but please just make sure to let us know who wrote it.
The winning entry will be featured on our Forivor blog and will win a £150 voucher to spend on Forivor. Judges decision is final.
Illustration above by Rebecca's mum Judy Attwood - a card drawn for her granddaughter's birthday but so lovely we wanted to share here.
Some Nature Memories from Rebecca
Forivor's world is in part a reflection of that childhood dream to be part of the animal world or for it to be a part of ours. Children (and adults) love to humanise animals - its a delight to daydream of having a family of squirrels over for tea, dressing rabbits in sweet frilly clothes and what could be better than getting a sneak peek of rabbits dusting their warrens or carefully preserving nuts and berries for their winter cakes.
The Forivorland side of our designs where day turns to night draws on this humanisation of nature and seeing Alice's drawings of our worlds come to life as we develop our collections is an absolute delight. It feels like such a privilege to be part of this process of creating magical worlds which we hope will remain in children's memories far into the future.
We also hope that with our daytime exploration of habitats, children and their parents might be encouraged to observe more carefully the natural world around us. Observing nature can be a bit like learning a new language - hard work at first but then the language starts to slow down as individual words make sense to us. For the last few years I have been using my Merlin app to try and learn some bird songs - they all just sounded like a great big twittering noise initially but this week as I walked I noticed I didn't need to look up to know a buzzard was about to fly over my head and robin's, skylarks and songthrushes seem to have found space around their sounds for me to recognise them. I'm a long way from being able to immediately recognise many of the other birds (by sight or sound) from the morning chorus on my morning walk through the woods, but learning them bit by bit and sharing with my kids when there is one I know makes us all feel more connected to what is going on around us. These observations I think of as being intentional ways to observe nature - going to watch murmurations or hiding out in tussocks at dusk to watch owls fly overhead or by the river to try and spot otters (unsuccessfully) - these are all planned and there is an immense reward to observing nature in this way and I really believe building our nature language as much as possible as part of living harmoniously with nature on our beautiful planet.
Today though, I wanted to write about some very special memories I have of moments that are more unplanned where nature has filled me with so much unexpected joy or strength of feeling that they are burnt on my brain for the rest of my days. They range from trying to save injured birds and moles, following turtles as they swim in exotic seas, stumbling across monitor lizards, witnessing fireflies and phosphorescence to perhaps my most favourite of all when a dormouse decided to befriend us in the most spectacular way a few years ago and just this week three majestic hares tearing around a field so fast chasing each other it made me shriek with delight as I was driving along. I felt so lucky to bear witness to the hares running so freely together and as with all animal encounters like this which feel out of the ordinary or surprise us, it made me feel connected to the spirituality of nature and how much comfort, joy and reassurance it can bring us in its rhythms and beauty. It also reminded me a lot of seeing the dormouse.....
If you follow Forivor on instagram you may have seen I am often out walking and exploring with my kids. Its my favourite thing to do and on this particular day a few years ago we were walking, cycling and scooting not far from where we were living at the time. I was in the last phases of chemotherapy for breast cancer and feeling vulnerable and tired. It was a sunny evening though and we set of to stretch our legs and not far along the road out of the corner of my eye I spotted a little golden mouse sitting in the hedgerow looking at us. I immediately got everyone to slow down and be still thinking the mouse would be terrified and run off, but as we came to a standstill the mouse just carried on sniffing the air and observing us.
After a few moments it started walking onto the road closer to us and we couldn't believe our eyes when it was standing on its little hind legs just looking up at us and then jumped up on the pedal of the bike and started exploring all over it, running over its handlebars, it climbed on the scooter and then eventually on my daughter Remie and ran up and down her shoulders and arms.
This perfect sweet golden mouse wanted to play with us and we stayed with it for such a longtime before having to head home for our tea - I looked out for it every single time I walked down that road afterwards but never saw her or him again but doing some research found it was a rare little dormouse. Now when I think back on that moment I feel like it was no coincidence that this little dormouse (which are very rare and nocturnal by nature) came to play with us at such a hard time in our lives - it gave us so much hope and joy and I will treasure those ten minutes we got to spend with its golden sunny nature always.
It was so special that until now I didn't want to even share it with the world, it felt too precious to share with the fleeting world of instagram, like its time with us needed honouring with more thought and for some reason seeing those hares running around the field made me think that now was the time to share how it made me feel and I really hope you might all take a moment to share some of your favourite nature moments with us this Easter holiday.
