Well, that ended up being quite a special weekend. How many of us can say we have cooked Asian fusion foods with local foraged ingredients from the Welsh hills! Tara took us on a fascinating and educational journey into Indian food, explaining some of the meanings and attributes of the foods, the spices and the social aspects too.
You can take the person out of the city, but you canÔÇÖt take the city out of the person! Tara blends a childhood in urban London with her chosen profession as an outdoor professional, and she does it with style. Challenging norms and taking us into different ways of thinking about the countryside, nature and our relationship with them.
Whilst we had a really mixed age group, including younger children and experienced adults, Tara brought us all together on a fascinating journey throughout the weekend. We discussed bushcraft and countryside awareness; Welsh language and the importance of its meanings in understanding the place and its wildlife; we foraged for ingredients; we all got involved in preparing them for cooking; we lit the fire with a bow drill; we cooked and then  we had a feast! Most importantly we shared a wonderful experience as a group, building a social experience around our enjoyment of this wonderful mid Wales farm with a common love of the countryside, wildlife and the outdoors.
Prompted by the amazing views across a diverse landscape, Steve did a short session on countryside heritage, reading the landscape and our relationship with wildlife more generally. This led the group into all sorts of nuanced and fascinating conversations around farming, wildlife, wilding, systems thinking and other aspects. Plenty to keep the conversation going over preparations of the numerous foraged ingredients!
The location was amazing too. Located high on the side of the hill in mid Wales, it has wonderful habitats which the owners farm to maximise the wildlife, maintaining old pastures, ancient trackways and patches of woodland. The camp area is carefully laid out to minimise impacts, maximise enjoyment and takes careful consideration of waste and other factors.
Of course, no weekend with Tara would be complete without some music and, as always, she treated us to some evening tunes before everyone made their respective way to their beds. We hope we will be doing lots more camps with Tara!