walks in the woods

Sarah November 1, 2013

Re-discovering the park. #countrykids

A couple of weeks ago a couple of the members of apartyofseven suffered a pretty mean stomach bug, myself included. One of those that knocks you sideways and looses days and hours to the bathroom and the faithful bucket. Yuk.

About 72 hours after i had stopped being ill i decided that it was time to try and have a little run, up till this point my legs were still pretty wobbly. So one saturday morning i decided to wander off to a local ‘runners’ park after the ballet run drop off.

I sort of shuffled around the park, feeling wobbly at places but it was a slow and steady run and it gave me time to have a look at the park at the changing leaves. The park has a LOT of trees so the impact was pretty impressive. I even noticed a HUGE conker tree and thought there and then that I would suggest coming back later with the kids to do some conker picking. Which we did, although i did forget where the tree actually was and dragged everyone all the way round the park saying excitedly to them…’oh wait till we find this tree, wait till you see it!’

To be fair when we got there they did try and get enthused about it but i think to be honest they were all thinking i had kind of lost it. 😉 But we did get a very impressive conker haul!

The park has a famous victorian palm house and a fairy glen that i have walked past thousands of times but never read the info on it, isn’t it funny how sometimes you have no idea about the stuff that is under your nose. My son and i read the story about the fairy glen and the bridge and the iron bridge. Gave me a little bit of shiver down my spine to be honest! My son though, every the pragmatist told me that it was ridiculous and couldn’t possibly be true because Ghosts down exist!!

Walking back to the car we noticed the biggest mushroom i think i have ever seen. It had some amazing colours and was standing proudly by the side of the path. I have no idea what makes a mushroom grow somewhere, do they have spores that are blown by the wind? are they planted? I haven’t a clue. 😉

I do know though, that lots of them are very dangerous so i wouldn’t let the kids touch this one, so we looked at it a while. I took some pictures and we wondered about what type it was. Annoyingly it has a bit of grass on the top which was really spoiling it but im such a chicken that i wouldn’t even touch it to remove that for the shot! ha!!

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Sarah June 3, 2013

Being beside the seaside #motivationalmonday #themondayclub

The beach.

I love the beach and i hate the beach. This juxtaposition may be a recent thing for me, as in the last ten years really. Having children changes your view of the beach i think. Not the actual beach but just the enormous task that becomes going to the beach. It can almost be a camping trip the amount of stuff you have to take. There should be some kind of lift arrangement to get stuff from your car onto the sand, maybe one of those delivery supermarket things, you could just order your stuff to be delivered to a pre-deteremined spot. Or maybe a new career for those beach-ride donkeys? There must be a better way.

Then there is the small thing of the sand…the sand…e v e r y w h e r e…..for the next couple of weeks. I swear i have put clothes through the wash and still shaken sand out of them when they come out of the washing machine. When we had a sand pit in our garden my OH used to say that at any given time of the day no matter how much you tried there would always be sand in the house. But how the kids love digging in the sand. I get it, there is something therapeutic about it.

When we go ahead and go for a walk, we can aim to stay away from the water and up here the tides can be a long long way out so you would think that it was doable. But it always turns into a partial swim regardless of the weather. There is something about the sea that draws my kids in..even when you shout ‘we have NO dry clothes with us!’ at the top of your voice. The words seem to drift off with the sand in the wind, carried away from unhearing ears and they plough into the water.!!! 🙂

But you absolutely HAVE to love the joy that it brings to the kids faces, the sound of the sea, that salty air, the connection with the awesome force that is a mass of water…

even if it does result in a very wet and soggy walk home.

🙂

Please dont forget to link up to motivational monday this week! This weeks giveaway is a choice! WOOH! of one of four beautiful Mini Boden summer dresses for girls. You can enter via the rafflecopter below! The winner of the Nike Running shirt is Faye Huntington. Congrats please get in touch to claim your prize! Please dont forget that you can still enter to win a Fab LUSH giftbox by going and showing some love to the beonepercent charity. Just follow this link to last weeks post!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Sarah May 17, 2013

Cook on a campfire #countrykids #50things #nationaltrust #springcarnival

Its not every day you just have to step outside your back door to do some outdoor fun right outside your back door. My OH was really keen to try out his new outdoor toy and so before bed the kids de-camped in their jammies and dressing gowns to see the new ‘Kelly Kettle’ in action.

The Kelly Kettle is a system whereby you can boil water in a safe and easy to use system which basically has a little fire in a bowl underneath and actually heats the water, it works pretty quickly once the fire gets going and it can also be used on a conventional stove.

It was a little bit of playing with fire thrown in, which lets face it all kids love, they all had a go at the fire-starter thing which they all think is a great little thing to play with!!…

But the most important part all together was the hot chocolate that was promised a the end.

It was all over and done with in about 20 minutes and then it was time to head inside and tuck the kids in the beds but they had that lovely smell about them as we were saying goodnight of woodsmoke. Which just gives you such a feeling of the outdoors it was really lovely. They felt like they had, had a mini adventure in the outdoors and they smelt like it too!

setting up the hot chocolate tray – a very important job!

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Sarah January 18, 2013

Making the most of it..Country kids…

Back before the kids returned to school a couple of weeks ago we had the luxury of a bit of extra time. School generally goes back straight after new year but this year we had a few extra days and it was really nice. Time to do normal ‘out of school’ stuff that isn’t part of the crazies that is christmas. Our plan on the thursday was to go out and explore a hill that is about 40 minutes drive from here but our morning preparing was hindered by a long conversation with the insurers with regards to our car crash, you can read about it by clicking on the link.

So we were left with less time and having a few boring school shoes errands as well..we had to opt for staying local. But I think we managed to have quite a nice afternoon..considering. A nice lunch, playtime and then walk through one of our local national Trust properties..all be it totally deserted!! Success grasped from the hands of defeat!

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Sarah January 5, 2013

A new year tradition…with the Country kids

Ever since having kids New Year has always taken on a bit of a different aspect. The days of partying hard for the 31st are well and truly gone..also combined with the fact that one of our daughters has her birthday on the 31st. Auld lang syne has long since been replaced by a bit of an early night and sometimes a kids celebration with a ‘fake’ midnight 😉 (that worked before we had one who could tell the time!)

So our family tradition on new year is to get out and go for a walk and thankfully we have some good friends that share that desire. So this year was no excuse and amazingly it didn’t actually rain! It was very very windy and muddy though! Home for toad in the hole and kids settling in for a movie. A good day and start to the new year.