Half Terming - Dog Walking

Just a little bit of autumnal walking with some lovely friends and lively children.

Beautiful Brilliant Sun Shiney Day

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present. ~Babatunde Olatunji



Lily's 6th Birthday

Lily turned 6, so we were in the woods just like last year.

Only this time they were all a bit bigger. This big one at times almost indiscernible from the adults, and last years babies up and everywhere. The slightly advanced years of the older little ones was really noticeable, as they were all just that little bit more independent. Disappearing off in groups and running their own games with little input or awareness from the adults.

We all bought food and Frankie cooked pasta on the chimenea. What a brilliant outside stove that thing is.

Sneji brought salads and a really yum bean, garlic and mushroom salad that reminded me of France.

I made a coconut, blueberry and cacao torte and widely publicised that fact that it was not only raw but also good for you. Despite this, the men still ate a huge portion of it. I would have been pleased that it had been so well received, had it not meant there was considerably less for us, and nothing in the way of leftovers.

Lily's birthday present began life like this,

and ended up like this. Again, no working camera and reliance on my phone for photos really takes it's toll! especially on a dusky May evening in the woods.

Lily looked perfect in trousers and skirt and crocs and mud and leaf litter. I always think a girl misses out if she doesn't end her birthday party with leaf litter in her hair. Beats a tiara any day.

And just before bed we went to the end of the woods and released a purple sky lantern. We all made a wish for Lily as it floated up into the evening sky. Well, we all tried to make a wish, but it took so long to light, and kept coming down causing Simon and Fin to dash about the neighbouring field after it, that by the time it was truly air born we were mostly doubled over with laughter. I laughed so much I cried.

Happy 6th time around the sun Lily. x

A Flying Woods Visit

We haven't been up to our friends woods for ages. I can't actually remember the last time we were here. And to be fair, we were only popping in this time as well, but it did feel so good to be back up there.



This is such a special place for all of us. And just being here in sandals and Sunshine reminded me of all the wonderful warm days of summer that are yet to come this year. All the camping and climbing and cooking and knitting and reading and playing we will do in this little piece of woodland.

And that's just here. There are so many other places that are dear to us where we spend our summer times, and so many places we haven't been yet that we hope to visit this summer.

Oooh, I can't wait!

In Spate

A most earnest search for puddles...

... for the important business of splashing in.

 But the real Mummy reason for the expedition in the cold and wet was this.

I know that flood and rivers in spate are dangerous and destructive, and with the devastation caused by flooding both abroad, and so very close to home, I am anything but complacent.

But I can't help it, I just love LOVE a river in spate.

Just for comparison, you can see the two trees in the left of this picture, in the far right corner of the picture below, which was taken during the summer. 

Mmm, or maybe I just love rivers, as the picture above is equally appealing!

I have driven miles out of my way to see a river that has burst its banks, and have driven down flooded roads to get to the best place to see a flooded valley.

I feel scared and exhilarated by them. In awe of their raw power, and fascinated by the swirling and bubbling surface that just hints at the power and turmoil beneath. I like to show the boys the river when its like this. I want them to understand how awesomely powerful every river is, but especially a river swollen with heavy rain and melted snow. I want them to respect it and feel the fear and adrenaline you need to keep you safe near something so elementally ferocious.

There goes the footpath!



The flood had receded by the time I made it down there. There was evidence of the silt deposits and flattened foliage all along the valley.

 All too soon the footpath leaves the river bank and climbs up out of the valley. I felt very reluctant to leave, and longed to be able to follow the river further up to where the valley widens and the normal course of the river has been all but lost. I managed to catch this from higher up the hill through the tangle of beach hedge and holly trees. You can just see the snaking path of the river, and how far it has encroached into the farm land around.

Brilliant.

Just Being

I went for a walk in the woods on Sunday. Not an uncommon occurrence I grant you, but this was different. I was ALONE.

It was late when my husband decided to drive a 40 mile round trip to my Grandparents house for some bits of Plexiglas my Grandpa had saved for him, and later still by the time he realised that the children really were coming along for the ride and he could do nothing to stop them.

The mountains of things requiring my attention were there. The paperwork, the laundry, the supper, the sewing...all there waiting for me. And I was tired, so tired, from several broken nights with unsettled children with bugs.

So I decided to go for a walk. Actually I just decided to go to the woods, and accept the walking as a by product.

It was beautiful. More than beautiful. It had been a clear cold late Autumn day and it slowly turned into a misty still Autumn twilight.

I walked, and stopped, and listened. I saw how the holy berries looked as though someone had painted them in scarlet gloss, like the staging for a Christmas photo shoot, but not for my benefit. I saw how the mist rose above the meanderings of the river, giving the whole valley an eerie and otherworldly quality, but that was only my interpretation. And it occurred to me there, in the silence and stillness that I am unaccustomed to in my boy filled world, that I love the wood, but the wood cares not one little bit for my affections.

It just is.

If a tree falls in the forest it matters not whether there is any one there to hear it. It's noises are not for us.

And small fish in big ponds and large fish in small ponds feel no more or less important and give no thought to the size of their pond and the relative dimensions of their own fish body.

They just are.

It is only us humans who attribute layer upon layer of meaning to everything, and it felt wonderful in the dusk and mist to just be, just for the briefest of moments, before heading back to meaning.

Wheal Eliza

We took a walk on Exmoor yesterday. Starting in Simmonsbath and heading out to Wheal Eliza Cottage. The ruins of a tiny cottage left out on its own on the moor. You can just see the wall of it here. The boys and I stood in front of the piles of stones and imagined what it must have been like to live there.

Fin said it would have been boring to live such an isolated place, but then when we talked through what life out there would have involved, he decided there wouldn't have been time for being bored. It must have been so beautiful and so hard. They were probably snowed in for weeks or months at a time up there in the winter.

We had hoped to walk on to Cow Castle, but Jack had tummy ache and I wasn't convinced he would last so we will leave that one for next time.

Gone to the Woods

Supper

A shared bedtime story

morning cuppa

climbing tree's in pajamas

breakfast

We had a girls night out (plus children) and stayed in the woods last weekend. Myself and two other friends took our many children to our friends woods. It was warm and rained heavily late in the evening, and we went to sleep to the lullaby of raindrops on tent roofs. We had a lovely camp.

The Generation Game - A Walk in the Woods

My Mum has always walked in the woods. All my childhood we would walk on Exmoor, and those walks would nearly always be in the woods. Most of my childhood memories are of playing in woods, both with my Mum, and off on our own around where we lived.

And we love being in the woods.

I took my Mum down to Halsdon Woods because I knew she would love it. We talked and walked and planned further walks through the woods once she returns.