Merlindale Nature Festival

Connecting Threads is delighted to support Merlindale Nature Festival with live music by Katie’s Music Sessions. Katie and local forest school group Gaia Guardians are sharing a new song they have written together for the River Tweed.

Over the course of the summer, Gaia Guardians and Katie's Music Sessions have collaborated to write a song for the River Tweed. Gaia Guardians are an active, child-led forest school group in the Dawyck area who feel passionately that children’s voices should be heard and included in the big decisions being made about the land, trees and waters of their region. This song has been made as an act of honouring the voices of children and as a first step towards activism. Merlindale Nature Festival is the song's first outing – a way for these voices to resonate through the community and political landscape.

Merlindale Nature Festival is an afternoon of traditional hay cutting and woodworking demonstrations and guided nature walks. Visitors can take part in a range of workshops including wildflower and pollinator identification, scything, wildflower seed collection, and herbal storytelling, and learn from a broad spectrum of wildlife and conservation of societies from across the south of Scotland.

About the artist
Katie Forbes is a Scottish songwriter, performer, recording artist and music facilitator. Katie has been providing accessible music projects in the Scottish Borders for 17 years for young people and adults of all needs and abilities. Under the name Katie’s Music Sessions, Katie provides music workshops and performances, following music therapy practices, with an aim to educate people on music skills, benefit wellbeing and invite connection with the Scottish Borders green spaces in which she lives and was raised.

Merlindale Nature Festival takes place at Merlindale, Drumelzier, Peebles, ML12 6JD. For more information, please visit www.merlindalenature.com