Jens Den Nature Retreat

Jens Den Nature Retreat Reconnect with yourself, others, and nature. When life feels chaotic, nature brings you back to yourself.
(3)

Come to Jen’s Den Nature Retreat to unwind, get creative, and have fun! Whether it’s crafting terrariums, painting terracotta, or planting succulents

10/08/2026

🌿 ALL CHANGE AT JEN’S DEN! 🌿

Today marks the beginning of Terrarium Week and I am ridiculously excited about this one.

Ive packed away the forest pots for now, cleared the tables and replaced them with glass jars, clay balls, soil, slate, tiny plants and, most importantly…
MOSS!

I bloody love moss. 😂💚
There’s something about these tiny ecosystems that absolutely fascinates me.

Moss, microorganisms, soil, plants, moisture, all these little living things working alongside one another and creating their own miniature world.

And that’s exactly what we’re going to be doing this week.

There’s no.... this is what yours should look like.

We’ve got slate for little steps and pathways, clay and soil to build banks and walls, plants to choose from, stones, moss and lots of bits and pieces to explore.

You can create a little woodland, a mossy garden, something wild and overgrown, something beautifully simple, whatever your hands and imagination decide to make.

Everything is out and ready.
First terrarium session starts this morning and I genuinely cannot wait to see the tiny worlds that leave Jen’s Den this week. 🌿🫙
Let Terrarium Week commence!


10/08/2026

5.30am and I’m doing my usual ramble around the woods. 🌳

I’ve got a terrarium workshop this morning, so this is my little bit of time beforehand. Come on Jen, get outside, connect, listen, regulate and give yourself some time before the day begins.

At this time in the morning the loudest noises are nature. Just how I like it. 💚

And then I came across this…

People deliberately setting things on fire in the woods, when everything is already so dry.

Where is the thought?

It’s not even an afterthought, it feels like it wasn't a thought in the first place.

This is why I genuinely believe horticulture, nature and understanding our environment should have a much bigger place in our schools. Not as an occasional extra. As something important.

Without our little wildlife communities, us little humans are absolutely buggered. 🌍🐝🌳

I’m no horticultural expert. Far from it. I think I’m more of an appreciator of knowledge, and I bloody love passing the bits I do know on.

That’s one of my favourite things when children come into Jen’s Den. I get to put my practitioner head back on, get our hands in the soil, notice what's around us and hopefully pass a little bit of that appreciation down.

Yesterday I was out litter picking with Zac from PickWalks, Stu Robbins and Carl, doing our little bit So after this morning’s terrarium workshop, I’ll toddle back into the woods and do abit more.

Because these spaces look after us.

The very least we can do is look after them. 🌿💚 spaces

10/08/2026

5.30am and I’m doing my usual ramble around the woods. 🌳

I’ve got a terrarium workshop this morning, so this is my little bit of time beforehand. Come on Jen, get outside, connect, listen, regulate and give yourself some time before the day begins.

At this time in the morning the loudest noises are nature. Just how I like it. 💚

And then I came across this…

People deliberately setting things on fire in the woods, when everything is already so dry.

where is the thought from folks?

Why am I doing this

What could the consequences be?

It’s not even an after thought, it feels like it wasn't a thought in the first place.

This is why I genuinely believe horticulture, nature and understanding our environment should have a much bigger place in our schools. Not as an occasional extra. As something important.

without our little wildlife communities, us little humans are absolutely buggered. 🌍🐝🌳

I’m no horticultural expert. Far from it. I think I’m more of an appreciator of knowledge and I bloody love passing the bits I do know on.

That’s one of my favourite things when children come into Jen’s Den. I get to put my practitioner head back on, get our hands in the soil, notice what's around us and hopefully pass a little bit of that appreciation down.

Yesterday I was out litter picking with Zac from PickWalks Stu Robbins and Carl and doing our little bit.

After this morning’s terrarium workshop, I’ll toddle back into the woods to clean this up

Because these spaces look after us.

The very least we can do is look after them. 🌿💚

Weelsby woods litter pick part 2.What else did the woods reveal to us today?Well for one....This beautyZac found it whil...
09/08/2026

Weelsby woods litter pick part 2.

What else did the woods reveal to us today?

Well for one....

This beauty
Zac found it whilst litter picking in the copse in the "witches circle." ( locally called)

Is it a Well?
Is it a tunnel from when the polish camp was her?

Any clues anyone

PickWalks
The Canoe River Cleaner
Your Place Grimsby (Ernie might you know?)

🌳 Picking up rubbish is not so rubbish 💚Massive thanks to Stu Robbins Carl and Zac from PickWalks for joining me for ou...
09/08/2026

🌳 Picking up rubbish is not so rubbish 💚

Massive thanks to Stu Robbins
Carl and Zac from PickWalks
for joining me for our little ramble and litter pick around the woods this morning and of course Lisa from Treehouse Cafe & Ices Weelsby Woods for lending me the gear.

For me, litter picking is never just about the rubbish.
Of course, we picked up plenty of it. Some of it had clearly been hiding in the undergrowth for years.

But you know what else a litter picker does?
It gives you a bridge to conversation.

For some of us, having something in our hands, something we're doing, a purpose, a prop, a prompt… makes talking to another human being so much easier.

Four different people stopped me this morning and said, thank you for doing that.

And one of those little interactions became something much more.
A gentleman was sitting on a bench by himself. He thanked me for picking up the litter and we got chatting.
He told me he'd recently lost his wife.
She'd always been the talkative one, he said. He wasn't. And since losing her, he hadn't really spoken to anybody for ages.

But today he did.

Had I not had that litter picker in my hand, he probably wouldn't have thanked me.
If he hadn't thanked me, we probably wouldn't have started talking.
And if we hadn't started talking, I wouldn't have heard a little bit about his wife and he wouldn't have had that conversation today.

A litter picker can be a reason to leave the house.
A reason to get into nature, to walk alongside somebody, a stranger to say hello, or to stop at a bench and have a natter.
And, sometimes, a little bridge between two people who might otherwise have walked straight past one another.

So grab a litter picker. Go around your local park, woods, beach, street wherever you happen to be.

Pick up a bit of rubbish.
Say hello to people.
See what happens.
Because it turns out…
picking up rubbish is not so rubbish after all.

It's bloody brilliant. 💚🌳♻️
And this morning was a rather lovely reminder of why.

5am sunrise with All Things Good And Nice C.I.C . 🌅💚Good people. Good dogs. A flask. The sea. And a sunrise that absolut...
09/08/2026

5am sunrise with All Things Good And Nice C.I.C . 🌅💚
Good people. Good dogs. A flask. The sea. And a sunrise that absolutely showed off this morning.
No better way to start a Sunday really.

Sometimes you don’t need anything complicated. Get outside, find your people, watch the sun come up and remember there’s an awful lot of bloomin’ lovely stuff out there.

Cracking way to start the day. 🌅🐾☕💚

09/08/2026

Picking up litter sesh!

The original text suggested 9AM but im changing it to 10AM.

Ill be outside Treehouse Cafe & Ices Weelsby Woods 🌿

08/08/2026

🌳 Sunday morning litter pick if anyone fancies joining me? 🌳

I’m heading out for a little litter pick around Weelsby Woods tomorrow morning at 9am. Not 10AM like the video says😄

If anybody fancies joining me, meet me outside the Treehouse Cafe & Ices Weelsby Woods at 9am. I’ve got the litter-picking gear, at jens den so you don’t need to bring anything. 💚

We can head out together, have a wander and a natter while we pick, or if you’d rather do your own thing, you’re more than welcome to grab some equipment and head off individually.

No big organised hoo-ha. 😂 Just a few folks giving an hour or so back to our lovely woods. 🌿

To enhance the experience, you can also log your pick on CleanerWalks and report anything untoward.

Google www.cleanerwalks.co.uk and have a play about with the app.

9am tomorrow
Come along if you fancy it. The more hands, the less litter. 💚🌳

08/08/2026

🌿 And that’s a wrap on Forest Pot Painting week…

Not forever, mind. The pots
and paints aren’t going anywhere. 😂
But today was our last Forest Pot Painting session before we move onto Terrarium Week on Monday, and what a lovely little ending it was.

Today, Sam O'Brien Sarah Wrigley and Mandy Brocklesby came to the Den.

And I think something happened this morning that probably explains these sessions far better than I ever could.

You arrive.
You look at the blank pot.
There’s that little bit of uncertainty…

What am I supposed to do?
I’m not really a painter.
What if I’m rubbish at it?

Shoulders a little tight. A bit of resistance. Maybe even wondering why on earth you agreed to paint a plant pot in the first place. 😂

And then, somewhere along the way, something changes.
The shoulders come forward.
The concentration kicks in.
You stop worrying quite so much about what everybody else is doing.

And suddenly, you’re in it.
Choosing another colour. Adding another flower. Going back over that little bit. Deciding it needs something over there…

And the blank terracotta pot that felt a bit daunting at the beginning starts becoming completely and utterly yours.

Then comes my favourite bit.
That little look of…
“Bloody hell. I made that.”

Because they DID. 🌸
Beautiful, colourful, completely individual pots, filled with life and taken home by people who arrived unsure whether this was really their thing.

And left telling me how much they’d loved it.

That, for me, is the good stuff.
Not whether anybody can paint.
Not whether the flower is perfectly shaped.
Not whether it would win some imaginary plant-pot-painting competition. 😂

Just having enough space, time and freedom to get past that initial “I can't do this” and discover…

Actually, maybe I can. And maybe I really bloody enjoy it.

Thank you Sam, Sarah and Mandy for bringing yourselves to The Wild Play Table today. 💚
And thank you to everybody who has sat around this table and painted with me this week.

Forest Pot Painting week… complete. 🌿

Monday?
We enter the world of TERRARIUMS. 🌱🫙
And I cannot wait. x

08/08/2026

🌱 WHEN JENNY MET JENNY 🐴

Well, what an absolute treat this afternoon turned out to be.

I recently stumbled across SuccuLincs based in Ulceby, and obviously, as somebody who gets ridiculously excited about succulents, I needed to go!
Thanks to Ernie from Your Place Grimsby for the top tip.

I love succulents. All the different varieties, the colours, the shapes, the transformations and the fact that they all seem to have their own little personalities.

So imagine me walking into a POLYTUNNEL FULL OF THEM.
There was squealing. Quite a lot of squealing actually. 😂🪴
But....the succulents weren't even my favourite part of the afternoon.

Lorna and Martin were.
You know when you meet people and there's just something familiar? No performative stuff. No airs and graces. Just lovely, authentic humans doing something because they genuinely love doing it.

That's what this place felt like.

They grow and propagate their own succulents, but then you wander a little further and there are tomatoes, runner beans, incredible plants, beautiful fish... and then, as if I wasn't already happy enough, along came Sass and Jenny.
Yes. Jenny. The Horses!😂

And somewhere amongst the succulents, tomatoes, fish and horses, I had that lovely little feeling of...
Ahhhh. Neurokin. 💚

People who just get it.
And then there was Martin's generosity.

I don't really want to turn that into a list of what was given, because that almost misses the point. What struck me was how it was given.
There was no agenda.

No I'll do this if you do that.
No what am I getting back?

Just a really generous human sharing what he has.
I did give him some cash but ill definitely be bringing more next time.

And those offerings will now find their way into Jen's Den and, in turn, carry forward into the community in the most authentic of ways. 🌱

I think that's what made today feel particularly special. Generosity creating more generosity. Things that have been grown and nurtured being passed on, so that somebody else can grow and nurture something too.

Bloody beautiful really. 💚
What a gorgeous little local treasure we've discovered.

And Jenny... it was an absolute pleasure to meet you.
From Jenny. 🐴😂🌱💚

Address

48 Thirkleby Crescent
Grimsby
DN328PZ

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+447395069833

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Jens Den Nature Retreat posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Jens Den Nature Retreat:

Shortcuts

Share

Category