Sunday at Bill's Mother's: 8th February 2026
Dancing in the rain with Muddy Mother. Leg work. Backstreet garden. Out There News.
Morning. Today we say hello to Woodseats Community Garden, a tiny urban hub of well-being and wildlife with a plan. We have Muddy Mother singing praises of the rain, and some cosmopolitan surprises in the wet leaves of S11. And Out There News.
All this and more every Sunday: what do you reckon, could you pitch in to help for the cost of a monthly Millhouses flat white?
Out There News
MoveMore Award Nominations - If you know someone (or an organisation) who’s been busy helping people get out and about more in the wilds of Sheffield, the city’s enthusiastic activity promoters want to hear about them now in time for their glossy awards night in April. Nominations close on Monday!
New Bird Book for Sheffield - Sheffield Bird Study Group are set to publish their spectacular New Birds of the Sheffield Area, covering the history of Sheffield birding with an illustrated guide to all 300 birds seen around here. (We’ll have more on this soon, of course).
E-Bike Try Outs - 2026 is unofficially the year that Sheffield’s hills disappear for city cyclists. I hope to have a piece about the year of the E-bike in the Sheffield Tribune this coming week, but for the moment not many of us are aware there is already an E-bike try out on offer from the city’s CycleBoost scheme here.
Community Gardening
A small gang of volunteers at Woodseats Community Garden are rescuing bulbs from a flower bed renovation. “We’ll be paving the ground here now to make it more accessible, and putting in raised beds,” says garden manager Emma Hogg.
A few yards away is an array of carefully labelled compost heaps and a huge mud kitchen for the kids. A looming tower above is actually a composting toilet, says Emma. There’s a willow dome, a new rockery, an orchard planted this year with saplings from Sheffield Fruit Trees, and random pans, buckets and toy lorries. The best urban gardens have a burgeoning ramshackleness, to my mind.
We all sit down in the polytunnel and have tea and ‘experimental biscuits’ (says Emma). We chat about owls, and Svalbard, and cosy winters, then the volunteers head out in the freezing air to carry on their morning’s work
Some years ago, I visited this site at the back of St Chad’s Church, just off Abbey Lane, and remember a grass lawn bordered by a jungle. But more recently, a team of trustees have chosen to recognise the value of this backstreet green space for building the idea of community in an urban village. (Woodseats is actually a small town, with a catchment of 30,000 people, I was told).
Emma is a full time employee of Woodseats Community Garden, with a task over the next eighteen months to manage and promote the space, and ensure it gets used by local people and local organisations.
“The garden was set up to improve people’s wellbeing and to aid in nature recovery,” she says. “That’s rooted into everything we do here.”
The three volunteers with Emma this morning tell me how toiling outside makes them feel better, how they want to meet people from their local community and work with them to improve that community. They like learning how to garden, helping nature, or getting inspiration for their art work.
“Working here feels fulfilling,” says Ava Ord. “In many jobs you never see the result of what you do, so it feels pointless at times. Here it’s nice to see the result of your physical work.” Jay Hall talks of a post-pandemic need for folk to get out of their own homes and meet other local people.
Matt Head moved to the city last year. “Helping here gives you an opportunity for reflection,” he says. “And I like getting my hands dirty in service to someone else.”
The huge church looms in the background, as we wander round a new meadow, a sensory space, a copse for children’s dens, a series of donated wooden toadstools.
There have been 650 weekday attendances at the garden since she began work last summer, says Emma, with more folk volunteering or attending music or other events at weekends.
This year she wants to get more businesses hosting events at the garden, and more classes with art or wellbeing as themes, as well as gardening and nature. She has lists of birds and bees passing through, and the newts will soon have a new wildlife pond.
Every view from this garden is urban Sheffield: terraced backyards, imposing Edwardian church windows, trees, old workshop walls. The garden measures a third of an acre, says Emma, and now every square foot has a purpose.
The garden trustees helped the National Lottery Community Fund see the value of awarding £159,613 towards all this, to promote awareness of the environment and wellbeing, extend community outreach and contribute to local climate resilience.
It seems like a lot of lottery players’ money for such a small space, but charities reckon the cost to the nation of a person dealing with mental health problems can be tens of thousands of pounds a year.
There’ll soon be a gazebo above the rockery, an education centre and cafe next to the tool store, and a sheltered pergola structure for garden learning.
Emma talks through the planks and plans for the new learning centre, and Amish style, the volunteers loosen their coats and begin to raise up the walls.
To help, book or join Woodseats Community Garden, email manager@woodseatscommunitygarden.org.uk
Wet Weather Wandering - by Muddy Mother
At this time of year, the weather can be unpredictable: snow, wind, rain, sunshine and sleet just over the last few weeks, for example. But weather shouldn’t stop us getting outside with our children (barring actual official weather warnings, I suppose). It might just be the key to reframing the way we look at this time of year.
I’ll take you back to an incredibly rainy day two weeks ago. I’ve taken in my parents’ foster child for the morning, and find myself meandering round Endcliffe Park, three kids in tow, in the pouring rain.
Unsurprisingly, I begin the adventure in a rather foul mood. Until I start documenting all of the lovely moments and find that actually, there are quite a lot of them.
My three-year-old begins tee-shirtless having already spilled babyccino down himself. So he sports a zip-up fleece, jeans, and nothing much more sensible than that. His coat is coming along for the ride, but he’s uninterested in such a cumbersome, inconvenient garment. I make sure to keep the coat on show to prove to strangers I have at least tried to clothe my child appropriately.
The two littles sit happily in the double pushchair, proving themselves easy to manage, especially because they still have to wear what you want them to.
Shortly into the adventure, the motion of the pushchair and white noise from the rain sends one of them to sleep, leaving me with only two conscious children to entertain. And the second little one remains happy just watching the chaos of the rainfall and the three-year-old unfold.
I find myself pleasantly surprised by my three-year-old’s good spirits. Despite his lack of coat, he dances in the rain, either not noticing the cold and wet, or simply noticing everything else more. It inspires me to find joy in the less-than-ideal weather too.
The river is incredibly high and incredibly fast, and actually, rather scary. To demonstrate this, I have the interesting idea to throw sticks and watch them get carried away. How educational, I think, patting myself on the back, and finding a stick with which to educate, which disappeared under the water immediately.
Not to worry, the child is still keen to engage in the throwing stuff into the river activity. Not everything has to be educational.
“Snake!” three-year-old suddenly declares. Not believing him, but still nervous, I turn around to see a serpent-like tree root peeking through the path. Thus, begins our park safari. We spy mushrooms making a home on a log, and a curious plant by the duck pond. Better take a picture for Grandad, three-year-old decides, silently acknowledging that Mummy doesn’t have a clue about such things.
We then spy a worm crossing the path. This is decidedly less exciting, and three-year-old swiftly legs it up the nearest tree stump to ensure he’s out of worm’s reach.
This leads him perfectly to a current favoured activity; jumping, and this rainy park trip provides many a jump-worthy opportunity. Tree stumps, rocks, logs, all just high enough to climb up and jump from. Bonus points for landing in a puddle, despite Mummy failing to bring wellies along. (But I promise the coat is available if required.)
We find a great stick, and with it, make excellent banging noises on the duck pond fencing. It also comes in incredibly useful for our angling needs. Three-year-old fishes in the pond, he fishes in the puddles, yet despite his valiant efforts, we leave fish-supperless. I identify the Mandarin Ducks, because I have a point to prove that Mummy actually does know some things.
We run down a hill. Three-year-old helps push the pushchair back up so we can do it again. We are race cars zooming down the path to the next landmark. The bin. The tree. The bush. The bridge. We watch the wild river.
And then the cold sets in. Once the three-year-old gets cold, he won’t do anything more. He becomes an icicle. Thankfully, we have already run most of the way to the park exit, so I heave the icicle the short distance back to the car, where we warm up, have a snack, and wait for the baby to wake.
As we wait, I give credit to the three-year-old for showing me that fun isn’t dependant on the weather. Perhaps it’s just the unnecessary raincoats weighing us down.
Rainy day outdoor activities
Hunt for real and imaginary wildlife – we saw plenty of squirrels and all sorts of ducks, not to mention the tree root snake.
Take pictures of unknown plants – handy grandparents might identify them for you, or if not, the next indoor activity could be looking them up together.
Throw things in the river and watch what happens – you might get lucky and find a stick that does float.
Jump – from tree stumps, rocks, walls, or of course, into puddles. (Test shoe slipperiness first, and adjust).
Make music – use sticks, stones, (or whatever else you can find) to make noises on trees, paths, puddles (or whatever else you can find)!
Run - run to race, run to warm up, run to get out of the rain faster.
(Muddy Mother would love you to subscribe to her Our Storey’s substack about nice homely things and the trials of chaotic house renovation among toddlers)
Doing The Leg Work
Here’s a top tip for explorations in wet leaves, says ecologist Paul Richards.
“There’s a gap around the six or seventh pair of legs along in a male millipede. And in the female there’s a very small gap around the second pair of legs.”
Paul has been studying millipedes in Sheffield for forty years, he reminisces. The male gap is much more obvious, and is because one pair of legs have effectively become a sex organ, he explains. So check your millipedes sideways, count along the legs, and if there’s an obvious gap (and a mysterious appendage) six pairs down, it’s a male.
“That’s a really useful tip when you’re watching millipedes. Everybody, I’m sure, needs to know the difference.”
A few more top tips. They certainly have lots of legs, with two pairs per body segment, but no millipede actually has a million. The top leg bearer used to be a Californian beast with up to 750, but an Australian millipede found in 2021 was the first counted with 1,000 or more. (Paltry centipedes have just two legs per body segment, with a maximum leg count of 350 or so.)
I’m talking to Paul because he was rooting around Whirlow last week and found two species of millipede new to Sheffield: “Ophyiulus germanicus and Cylindroiulus londinensis,” he says proudly. So obscure they have no common names, he adds.
The latter is usually found around London, while despite its name, the former comes from Italy originally, not Germany, and only arrived in the UK a few years ago. It’s likely they turned up in Sheffield 11 as tiny eggs in the soil of some new plantings, Paul says. “I was sat in Whinfell Quarry Gardens having my lunch, and as you do, I couldn’t resist turning over some leaf litter.”
He didn’t even have his usual collecting kit of trowel, sieves and pots, he confesses, just a hand lens and a single pot. But fortune favours the brave, so after turning over soggy leaves near the soil line, there they were: two new species for the Outdoor City.
He had to perform further examinations after storing the celebrities in his fridge at home: the Italian is similar to a local species (Ophyiulus pilosus, since you’re asking). It’s only by looking at microscopic structures just under its chin, or examining its genitalia, that you can tell the difference, Paul explains. Not something you’d want to do on a soggy January in Whinfell Quarry Gardens, he adds.
Imported alien species are often a risk to local wildlife, but since millipedes are detritivores (only feed on dead and decaying plant material, like rotting leaves) they shouldn’t cause a danger to other creatures, Paul says. In Sheffield, decaying leaf litter is not really a limited resource.
Long ago, I photographed Paul with one of his pet African millipedes (above). It was the first photo of himself he found on the early internet, he says, fondly. A lot of damp leaves have gone under his sieve since then.
People appreciate worms because we know they turn over the soil, he says. “But it’s less understood that without millipedes crunching through decaying leaf material and pooing it out the other end, the worms can’t actually break down leaf litter.”
Worms just don’t have the mouth parts, he shrugs. “So the leaf litter has got to slowly rot away or get chewed by woodlice or millipedes for the worms to be able to do their job.” Without millipedes, it seems we’d have to burrow everywhere in the city of trees.
Now’s a good time to look out for these forest caretakers, Paul says, as they like the wet, and many coil up like snakes at this time of year. Unlike the African varieties, UK millipedes are fairly small (the Italian tourist is around 15-25mm long, whereas the Cockney is larger and wider, one of the UK’s largest millipedes at up to 4mm wide and up to nearly 5 centimetres long).
“Millipedes are an essential part of the decomposition process and that whole circle of life idea,” Paul says. “They’re not poisonous, they don’t bite you particularly, and they’re fascinating to watch. They’re just a lovely thing.”
More What’s On Out There (from Sunday 8th February)
A tiny selection from our new (and regularly updated) What’s On Out There news and listings post for February. (Full post is for full members, preview for all).
Sun 8th- Yorkshire Rose women’s cycle rides
Mon 9th - Whirlow Brook Park volunteer morning
Tues 10th - SRWT Volunteering - Carbrook Ravine
Weds 11th - Urban Nights gritty running events - The Tipsy Sportsman
Thurs 12th - Friends of Porter Valley Work Morning
Fri 13th - Lou Gold, out there local indie-folk star with The December Flowers in Neepsend (£11 ish)
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Thanks for reading.
I love Muddy Mother. It’s 75 years since I had toddlers and I obviously instilled a love of mud - remember my daughter, Jennie Stevens, and the Winter Spine Race? Anyway well done Muddy Mother - let’s embrace the rain 😁