fun – The Consulting Artist

Year 7 Summer Homework

The importance of play.

A couple of weeks ago Siobhan Sheridan shared this photo on Twitter.

I don’t know if it’s real or a spoof, but this homework grid caught my attention and I’ve decided to adopt it as my own summer homework too. You may think that homework for Year 7 is a little advanced for me, but a lot of this stuff looks like fun, I’m up for the challenge. Some of you may think that homework of any nature, is not fun – that’s fine, I’m not setting this for you – simply sharing it. I’ve completed nine tasks so far (with a little help from Keira) and I’m hoping Siobhan will mark my homework at the end of the holidays.

Since sharing this picture with others myself, one of the pieces of feedback I’m regularly getting is ‘it’s just a bit of fun’. It strikes me that we often use that term in a throw away context, and whilst I’m no fan of trying to force fun on anyone, I think there’s real power in something fun, something playful. I’m grateful to the late Brian Sutton-Smith, a well known play theorist, for coining the term:

“The opposite of play is not work, it’s depression.”

Forgive the oxymoron, but I think we need to take play more seriously.

Ups and Downs

I spent the weekend in Snowdonia with my Brother in Law, Steve. It was fabulous. We were there primarily to climb Mount Snowdon and had originally planned to head West and walk up the Rhydd-Ddu Path and down the Snowdon Ranger Path, but the weather on Saturday was murky and damp so we decided against Rhydd-Ddu which has some ridges we figured might be a little too demanding in the wet given our inexperience. Instead we were advised and decided to climb the Pyg Track – a much busier climb on the Eastern side of the mountain. We were rewarded with two very different experiences.

Ups – The Pyg Track

The Pyg Track is an 11km walk that ascends 723 metres. It is mainly rocky and at times, we had to scramble up a few short sections. On our ascent the weather rolled constantly through light rain, drizzle, fog and sun.

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The Summit

You arrive at a wide ridge shortly before the summit of the mountain, and here things changed. We could see two different weather systems fighting along the ridge. To the East where we had climbed, the mists swirled, and to the West, the wind blew and the sun shone. We were treated to some spectacular views – enhanced by the ever changing weather.

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Downs – The Snowdon Ranger Path

As we began to descend it became clear things were going to be very different. At 13 kilometres this path is longer than the Pyg Track and it descends further too – a total of 936 metres. It is a much wider path and is less rocky, but still very steep in parts. The biggest difference is the view of the mountain itself. This path is much quieter than the Pyg Track and on our way down we kept stopping to look back at the spectacular view of the mountain.

Once we reached the foot of the trail we thankfully had to stagger just a few metres to the bus stop and wait briefly to get picked up and dropped back in Beddgelert where we were staying at the excellent Plas Tan y Graig Guest House. That evening we enjoyed a lovely meal in the village bistro before a very deep sleep.

A fantastic weekend in great company and thanks to a twist in the weather, we enjoyed very different perspectives of a truly beautiful place.

48 Hours in Under Two Minutes

I have a somewhat heavy post about vulnerability brewing, but I’ve seen so much stuff online this morning from people revving up for the weekend, that I’ve put the vulnerability pot on the back burner to simmer a while. Instead, today I’m going old school 1977 to share with you one of the punchiest, shortest and best songs about the weekend I’ve ever heard. 48 Hours, by The Clash, which also happens to contain one of my fave lines of all time, namely ‘Monday’s coming like a jail on wheels’. Love it! Have a great weekend folks.

photo credit