Today saw us have a lazy start to the day. Lyns was on a late shift so I headed out early for a run before heading home and spending a little time with them both. After Lyns had headed to work, I asked James what he would like to do. He decided that he would like to go to a wood to find some conkers. After we had had lunch we headed out to my favourite local woodlands, Moorlands.
We go there quite a bit, but if you have not been, it is perfect for toddlers. It takes an hour or so to slowly wander round, with lots of areas for playing in. James loves it. Today there were lots of people there as the weather was nice and it was relatively dry under foot. We went with the expectation that it would be really muddle and wet but the path was really dry and we both would have been fine in trainers.
As you can see, James took his halloween bucket with him so that he could collect conkers. We did not see a single conker but he had loads of fun seeing what else he could find. We came home with a rare old collection of sticks, stones and leaves. Talking of leaves, James was loving kicking through all of the leaves. He was in his element and leaves were flying everywhere for most of the walk round.
When we had come before we had found a big badgers set, well thats what we came to the conclusion it was, so more than happy to stand corrected if there are no badgers in the area. James remembered this and spent a lot of time going off the path seeing if he could find more badger sets or rabbit holes. He was intrigued by things that live underground and kept telling me to be quiet so we did not wake them up.
For most of the walk round the leaves on the floor were the standard autumn brown. We came round one corner and there was a beautiful tree dropping red leaves everywhere. James was amazed that the leaves were red, not brown, and spent a long time examining them and asking why they were such a nice colour. I was useless as I had no idea at all what type of tree it was, any help gratefully received.
About half way round there is a bird hide tree house. We did not see any birds as there were a lot of children running around making a lot of noise but we had a good play in the tree house. James was up and down the steps hiding from the Gruffalo and the Gruffalo’s Child. He has some imagination that boy.
After we had spent about twenty minutes playing in the tree house James was starting to flag so we headed back to the car. It is roughly twenty minutes walk, at a tired James pace, to get back to the car but he kept is little legs pumping and with a few breaks en route, we made good speed.
We got back to the car and headed home. I was fully expecting the little man to fall asleep however he chatted all the way home. When we got home it was out with the Hot Wheels before he had some home made tomato soup and headed to bed. A lovely little stroll in the woodland that James thoroughly enjoyed.