Like a small number of people I do struggle with "Telling the time" which was a bit of an issue in very timetable settings such as school but there are otherways of working out roughly how much daylight you have and from that having some idea of time of day.
Mind the ghost of the Harecastle Tunnel near here.
Yes Crewe is south of here and actually Nantwich is south of Stoke!
This nice little map shows in orange the route of the Trent and Mersey Canal as it goes around the North west Midlands and nearby canals such as the Caldon which in the nineteenth and earlier twentieth century were centres of industrial activity rather than being mainly residential villages in much the same way here we worked underground in coal and salt mines.
As we enter Autumn, you may well be thinking "that's it I've had my fill of being outdoors" but really there's so much you can do in all but the most inclement weather which typucally ir is as I type this, raining hard.
Indeed personally I would go as far as to say every adult has the right to play in much the same way as a child has and we all need to be getting off our sofas and smartphones and doing it at home or when away.
Thus you could play hopscotch.
Hopscotch is a timeless game that never fails to entertain. Take this classic a step further by creating themed hopscotch games. You could make it longer, draw the board in a different shape, such as a circle instead of a straight line, or leave bigger gaps between the squares for people to jump across. You could also have a silly hopscotch version, where certain numbers mean you have to do silly challenges, such as singing a nursery rhyme backwards.
You could organize with friends a Scavenger Hunt mixed in with bit of a get together, build structures from sticks, do chalk art or go for a short hike.
If your feeling arty, how about making Leaf Animals.
Collect various types of leaves in different shapes, colours and sizes and then use them to create animals or even invent new creatures. Try making our leafy hedgehog, leaf crown, leaf squirrel or leaf art.
You could also practice identify different types of leaves, maybe taking turns at it.
How about playing with shadows?
On a sunny day, head out to somewhere where you can make lots of shadows. Use chalk or pens and papers, then trace the shadows of various objects, from trees to benches to each other.
As the sun moves, you could observe how the shadows change, showing how the Earth moves around the sun and time.
After tracing, you could use the shapes to create unique abstract art pieces.
You could go Geo Catching, search for Wildlife, go on a story stroll or although you you need to do some prep bbefore have a boat race like this:
Make a tinfoil river, or use a piece of rain guttering to make a river, then make some small boats to race.
You could make them from sticks and leaves, rubber ducks, kitchen sponges or paper boats, then decorate the boats before racing them.
Obviously we need to remember to have a start and finish line, and stay safe when running activities near water.
All in, there's a good twenty one things we could be doing outside so how about doing some?
Of course in some ways it's easier now, modern autofocusing systems are more accurate but until you actually engage the camera's focusing system the view is very much out of focus where if I was focusing by hand I'd roughly set it to something fairly close to the subject and adjust later!
September usually sees a gradual falling off of absolute traffic but is rewarded by softer, less contrasty light which makes for better photographs especially towards the middle of the day.
We enter Autumn which brings with it a load of events that we mark and to which pack leaders no doubt will be working on plans but one thing that always intrigued me was why as I recall from the sidelines where there was a number of different Cub annuals.
Part of the reason I can say that I was around during that era so I knew what my mates had, what they did - cubs on a Wednesday - and what appealed to them.
1971 is some fifty three years ago, the world of cubbery had changed in 1967 when the Wolf Cubs became Cub Scouts (and now just Cubs), uniforms got changes and awards got altered a bit.
Year had began with Clive Dunn singing Grandad and ended with Slade, T Rex and David Bowie and so in broad cultural terms we'd moved very much into the more sophesticated seventies.
What you might think does that have to do with Cub Scouts you might ask and the answer I would say can be seen between the covers of that book published in 1970, the 1971 Sixer Annual.
Re-reading this over the last few weeks, while the cover has three cub scouts looking as we all did the minute you opened it up, while looking to be a premium annual, this had no colour illustrations or pictures.
The language was rather stilted and old-fashioned even by 1971 standards, and indeed looking at early 60's versions seemed to be very much of the same ilk.
It certainly talks about exploring, identifying mammals, wild flowers and adventures which is great but it doesn't grip you in much the way the shorter Cub Annuals with their friendly text with colour did, leaving you wanting to try it out.
Had their been a "retro" market for Cubs stuff in 1971, in some respects this was more it even if the quality of the binding and the graphic layout on front cover is classy.
It doesn't surprise me that in time this annual left us because It certainly wouldn't of held the attention of myself and my mates as seven or eight year olds back then.
