It's the final day. And I genuinely don't know how that's happened.
It feels like it's gone so fast, but also like it's been four years. It was not two weeks ago that I met the people in this group, and yet it genuinely feels like I've known them for a long time. There's something about spending days together in a woodland - sharing food, building things, acting out mime and puppet shows, sitting in silence by fires - that compresses time in a way I can't quite explain. Call it Forest School time. Two weeks of it has done what months of office small talk never could.
I'm not sure how to describe the feeling, but it's like stepping into a parallel universe. Everything outside of these six days has just continued - the products, the clients, the code, the AI tools getting smarter while I wasn't looking - but in here, I've been completely absorbed. There are some AI parallels, I'm sure. An agent that goes away, does intensive work in isolation, and comes back changed. But I'll save that comparison for another post.
Church Rooms and Big Wind
We started the day in the church rooms rather than the woods. The wind had properly picked up overnight, and with the amount of paper involved in today's sessions, the two aren't compatible. Also - checks risk assessment - you do not want a tree falling on your head. There's a point where "embracing the outdoors" crosses over into "ignoring obvious danger", and today's wind was firmly on the wrong side of that line.
The start of the day was familiar by now. Knot. Chat. Talk on behaviour. Presentation.
Have I got used to the presentations? Nope. Will I? Also nope. But on we go. There's a difference between getting comfortable with something and getting through it anyway, and I've landed firmly in the second category. That might be enough. It's certainly more than I could have managed on day one.
It was a very theory-heavy morning, but that made sense - a lot of the practical stuff had been moved to yesterday when the weather was better. Sarah and Charlotte had read the forecast and planned around it, which is its own kind of lesson in how Forest School works. You adapt. You respond to conditions. You don't fight the weather, you rearrange the day. My brain had untangled from yesterday's overwhelm and it was a great session.
Nature Connection (Help)
After lunch and a final bit of paperwork, it was down to the woods we went - dodging the trees - for tool maintenance and a session on nature connection.
This is one of those subjects that logical me finds interesting and terrifying in equal measure.
Nature connection is not touching a leaf. I wanted it to be touching a leaf. Touching a leaf I can do. But no. It's in the senses, in emotions, in beauty, wonder and awe, in meaning and compassion for nature. It's the difference between identifying a tree and feeling something about that tree. Between walking through a woodland and being genuinely moved by it.
Here's the thing though. I think I probably experience this more than I realise. I just never notice it, never name it, never sit with it long enough to acknowledge what it is. The calm I feel when I'm whittling. The bliss of sitting by a fire eating crumble in the sunshine. The fact that I chose the bluebells over winning a game. That's nature connection. I'm just not used to calling it that.
Working out my own way to understand this and eventually impart it to others - there lies the challenge. I have time. It'll come. And if it comes in its own way rather than from a textbook, that's probably more authentic anyway. I'm a developer who whittles spoons and protects bluebells. There's something to work with there.
One Last Sit Spot
And just like that, it's the end of the day. One last sit spot.
I found a spot by the stream. Sat down. Watched the water. Watched the tree above me sway more than I probably felt comfortable with - ah, it'll be fine - and waited for that angry squirrel from day three to return and give Charlotte another piece of its mind.
The sit spot was easier this time. Not easy - my brain still fidgeted, still looked for things to do, still tried to compose emails and plan sprints and review pull requests from a seated position by a stream. But easier. The volume was turned down a notch from last time. Progress, maybe. Or maybe I was just tired enough that my brain couldn't sustain its usual level of internal noise. I'll take it either way.
What Just Happened
It's unbelievable how quickly these six days have gone. I don't properly understand what's happened. One minute I was tying my first bowline and trying not to make eye contact during a sharing round, and now I'm standing in a car park saying goodbye to people I'm genuinely going to miss.
I'm going to miss the sessions. The people. The woods. The rhythm of knot, game, theory, practical, reflection. The tea. The fire. The moments of calm between the moments of panic. All of it.
We're back in June for four more days of practical skills assessments. Something to look forward to, and plenty of work to do between now and then. Theory to embed. Reflections to write. And the big one: planning what my pilot session looks like. I'm not in a nursery. I'm not in a school. I don't have a natural group of children waiting for a Forest School session. I started this adventure out of curiosity and genuine awe for what Sarah does - and, if I'm honest, as an AI apocalypse backup plan. So the question of what my pilot looks like and who it's for is completely open-ended. The world is my oyster.
This mini blog series has found its close until June. Six days in the woods, six posts, and a version of me that's slightly different from the one who walked in. Not transformed - I said in day three that this isn't a transformation story, it's a rediscovery story, and I stand by that. But rediscovery takes you to new places too.
Back to the laptop now. Back to the code, the AI, the products, the pull requests. But I'll be thinking about the parallels between these two worlds - the digital and the woodland, the artificial and the natural, the optimised and the organic. And I'll be thinking about where this all goes.
See you in June, squirrel. Save me a spot by the stream. Paul Pinecone, signing off for now.
