Otterly delightful! A boredom-busting town trail supporting Weldmar in Blandford Forum

“I’m booooooooooooooooored.”

If that’s a frequent refrain in your household over the summer holidays and you’d like something low cost, fun, and outdoors for you and the kids to take part in, Marian Howells who owns haberdashery shop, Cotton Moon, in Blandford Forum has painstakingly and lovingly created a unique solution in the form of the annual Blandford Otter Trail which has returned to the town this year, bigger and better than ever!

The idea started with the intention of giving children something to do during the holidays, getting people to see the wide range of businesses the town has to offer and raise money for local charities at the same time, the Blandford Otter trail is in its second year and is going from strength to strength with more people learning about it and taking part, something Marian is particularly proud of.

“I feel very proud of it, and the way it’s grown. It’s taken a lot of work making the figures, getting them all out to the shops and that kind of thing – but it’s worth it!”

Starting with Ollie the Otter, Marian has spent hours of her time creating felt figures of the otter family and their other wild friends from kingfishers to badgers, as a nod to all of the local wildlife you can see in town with it being right on the River Stour. As well as animals, she’s also made some replicas of familiar local buildings including the Town Museum and the Fashion Museum, St Paul’s Church and the Corn Exchange.

Each participating business has a figure hidden in their window, and the idea is that children and their parents/carers can wander round and have the fun of finding them all. It’s not just for children though, one lady popped in with her form and said she was having fun doing it by herself – bringing joy to the whole community!

This year all of the entry fees are supporting two local charities, including Weldmar Hospicecare.

Why Weldmar Hospicecare?

Marian chose to support Weldmar as one of her local charities after taking a trip to Bridport to see some of the elephants during Stampede by the Sea earlier this year.

“I feel that hospice care is vitally important and desperately needs money, and I’m trying to support charities that are as local as possible. I visited the elephants in Bridport which is where I learned Weldmar’s name, and looked up more about them deciding I would like to support the work they do.”

“Anything anyone can do to raise a bit of money to help this kind of work is great.”

Thank you so much Marian for choosing to support us through all of your hard work!

How to take part in the trail

You can purchase a form for £1 from Cotton Moon on East Street, The Forum Café on Salisbury Street, or the Tourist Information Centre on West Street as you turn into the Marsh and Ham Car Park outside Morrisons.

Have a wander around the town centre (don’t forget the side roads and shops down alleyways!) and find as many characters as you can.

Participating businesses all have a sign in the window, you never know, maybe the Blandford Weldmar shop might have a little visitor? The Trail is running until the 31st of August, so there’s still plenty of time to enter and find Ollie, Molly, Baby Ottis and all of their friends!

You can follow the adventures of Ollie and his friends on Facebook: