Outcast of Redwall Day ~ 7 November 2008

Hello good creatures and welcome to this day of fun & food!

Who are you?

If you have good intent, our gates are open to you – 
whatever your weapon, 
whatever your race,
especially if you are
SUNFLASH THE MACE!

Knock, come and enter this day of fun. Food and games.  Show 10 fingers (claws) and come in…

Okay, come anyway, even if you are Sixclaw or Veil
Brother Stephen, recorder at Redwall Abbey

Well, that was our welcome sign for those who came along to share in this day with us.

On Redwall days, we usually start with introductions.  We had some great character line-ups this time.  Even though I took a photo of everyone, I’ll just include a few here.

Zac was Ruddle, Mark was a bankvole, Stevie was Sabretache and Adam was Jodd.

We had a beautiful and dare I say, almost regal, Abbess. 

We had not one…but two Sunflash the Mace characters.  One emphasised the mace and the other, just doing as he was told, emphasised his golden stripe:

It was nice to have a dad along for the day.  This dad, Pete was actually celebrating his birthday but we will get to that later…

After the customary character bingo game, we went outside for a scavenger hunt.  I made our parents work a little more this time and they all seemed to do well at the tasks I asked them to perform.

The first "station" or place to find was the Dubbo-Lingl cave.  They had clues to solve throughout the hunt, activities to do and things to collect.  The first one was to find a leaf and blow through it as a leaf-whistle.  No group quite managed it but after their best attempt, their next clue saw them find the "Gates of Spring" song in the cave and then have to perform it.

I think this parent (who shall remain nameless) relished her role as taskmaster for this part of the hunt.  You can certainly see her at her "conducting best" below.

After getting a "snowdrop" card to place in their bag, they then had to move along to the next challenge.  Like the phantom warriors, they had throw some stones. 

The target was the burned out tree on the other side of the gorge and some found this easier than others.  After the appropriate amount of practice, they solved another clue about Sunflash moving the boulder for the otters.  That led them to their next destination – the trampoline.

After pushing their "boulder" through a narrow crack in the side, they then moved on to making a leaf talisman.

Using string, a square piece of foil, and a green marker pen, they had to construct their own design and put it in their bag.  We had four groups and they all did it differently.  Two had leaf designs but they weren’t alike, one shaped theirs like a triangular stone and the other did theirs as a long tube around the string.  It was encouraging to see some creativity in this activity.

The last challenge was to do a character name unscramble.  Ten names were written on the paper and groups had to work together to solve all of it.  One group got 9 of them right…though I did have a few hard names…

After this, we compared the bags, the time spent completing the tasks and I thought two groups should take the honours.

Next, of course, was the lovely Redwall Feast.  What Redwall Day would be without it?  Yet again, the mums really did such a great job of providing excellent food.  I made sure that introductions on food were done this time, we shouted the "cut the cake for goodness sake" grace, followed a real returning of thanks, and then got down to scoffing!

I took photos too early for the full presentation of food and then, of course, it was too late as the food was soon demolished.  We certainly had some great desserts as you can see above and below:

and they were thoroughly enjoyed…

After this, we had a final outside game of captain ball.  I pinched Donna’s idea and there was a letter inside each balloon, which together, would make up a key word from the book – Salamandastron.

It was the only game that Mark took part in and it was so lovely to see him being helped.  Actually, a few of the older ones were just great on the day and made sure the younger ones joined in the fun and had a great time.  It was so lovely to see and I just want to commend them again for their caring attitudes – well done!

After discovering the word was Salamandastron, they then had to make as many words as they could from this one word.  There was a riddle about this in the book, "Sand alas not an arm…".

It kept them so busy we almost ran out of time for the quiz at the end, which would have been a shame as coming up with questions while going through the book is kinda fun (and actually, quite time consuming…)

Well, our day was not at an end.  There was still the birthday cake to do…

and the birthday boy to get….

Poor Pete!  As soon as the singing was done, the cake was whisked off the table and the kids began their water gun onslaught!

Don’t feel too badly for him.  He managed to defend himself a little and really coped with it well.

After this, we were all invited to stay and have a swim in the pool as well so it ended up being a longer Redwall Day.

Thanks for all the help on the day, guys.  Our family had a great time.

Euuulllaaaaaaalia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted on on November 11th, 2008