Bones and walks and cold

We went back to the monthly home ed group at the nature reserve today. We missed it in December. It was lovely to go again. The group meets at an old chalk pit that has been turned into wetlands and lakes. It's a beautiful place.

There is a purpose built wooden education building. Today there were lots of bones out for us to look at and hold.

Freddie worked on making a fire with some found wood.

It was very cold. We saw frost that looked like flowers, where the sun hadn't reached.

The light was luminous this afternoon.

The plan was to walk around the lakes. Freddie and Betsy are not great walkers. They're happy to scoot long distances, but scooters aren't allowed here. So we set off with the others. Pretty soon though we were lagging behind!

We didn't do the walk, just ambled for a while.

We saw a mouse hole. The little red and black bits outside the hole are the bits and bobs left over from mini mice meals. It's a mouse rubbish heap!

Meg enjoyed the view, looking at the ducks and swans on the water.

The dipping pond was frozen over. Freddie and Betsy tried to break the ice, but it was too thick. We spotted a little creature moving about in the water under the ice.

I noticed our shadows as we walked along so we took a photo. Meg was tootling about further along the path, so it's just the big kids and me.

Sticks and sunset

Today was our home ed group that meets monthly at a local nature reserve. It's the second time we've been, and we all really like it. It's very relaxed, with a few activities and lots of time outside.

We started by looking at leaves (and plastic snakes!) under the microscope.

Then we went outside to an area they're developing into a forest school. Freddie spotted a birds nest.

There were some really tall thin branches to move around, and make houses with.

The kids found sticks to bang on trees.

Meg got a little frustrated as she kept falling over (wellies+sticks underfoot=unsteady toddler), and Betsy was getting cold, so we left Freddie playing with the the rest of the group and went back to the barn.

Meg loved running along the path (no sticks to fall over!).

And so did Betsy...

Back at the barn, I had a cuppa, Betsy drew some pictures and Meg worked hard to dump stuff on the floor and clamber up on to the tables. I'd forgotten how challenging the toddler months can be! Though I do think Meg is slightly wilder than the other two were.

It was such a warm day for November, sunny and clear. On the way out the sun was setting, and looked beautiful over the lake. This photo doesn't do it justice.

We met a lovely family there, and the kids really enjoyed playing together. We've swapped numbers, and hopefully we'll meet up at the zoo sometime soon.

Fog and creatures

We had a lovely day at Waddesdon, a manor house built by the Rothschild family in the late 19th century. It's beautiful here, the house and the grounds.


Freddie likes to hide in the jungle aka the tree fern garden. He's very well camouflaged today!


It was foggy this morning, and we drove through large patches of fog on the way to Waddesdon. The kids loved it. It soon burned off, but before it did we got to see the gorgeous view.




The autumn colours were just stunning in the bright sunlight.


There are a few great hills for rolling down.


We spotted some huge fungi on the bottom of a tree.


Then we met up with our friends, and headed to the woodland playground.






We had a picnic, and rode up back to the house on the landtrain. The formal gardens at the back of the house are amazing - very ornate, precise, in perfect order. I kept removing Meg from sitting on perfectly trimmed and shaped hedges eek!

Betsy found a couple of snails (I'm surprised they were allowed to be there by the army of gardeners!), and we found a statue with dozens and dozens of ladybirds crawling over it.








Such a great day. It's the weekend tomorrow so we'll have Rob to play with.

Finally back to normal

This week we were free to leave the house, no longer contagious - hooray!

Monday was just bliss. Freddie did an impression of someone who was doing nothing:

In fact he was totally occupied - listening to a story on a CD, and observing the birds to-ing and fro-ing at the bird feeder.

Once his CD was finished we popped into town to run a couple of errands. The kids played in the fountains.

After lunch we went for a walk down the tow path. It seems we saw everything we'd missed in the previous week, all in a couple of hours! Moorhen chicks (tiny, fluffy, black, the cutest things), ducklings, an orange/yellow ladybird with no spots, a red kite flying low, a pair of dragonflys with unusual markings on their wings, huge fish basking in the warm water, and we picked half a small white (empty) egg and some iridescent duck feathers.

Freddie chatted to the fishermen we passed. There were 3, each fishing differently from each other. One sat on the bank, waiting for a bite, one was fly fishing, and one was walking along pulling his line through the water.


We stopped at the playground, had a play and an ice cream.


Later, at home, we were going to use this abandoned traffic cone in a police game.

But when I picked it up, there was an ants nest underneath. It was incredible - we could see the tunnels and the eggs. The ants went crazy. There were regular ants and flying ants. The white things at the bottom of the photo are the eggs. There were small one and bigger ones. We guessed the bigger ones were the flying ants, but must look it up.

After a while I replaced the cone and left them in peace.


Later in the week we went to the Buckinghamshire Goat Centre. There are goats of course, rhea, sheep, ferrets, guinea pigs, rabbits, hens, pigs, ponies, a donkey, a llama, chipmonks.

They had all sorts of activities on. Freddie held a week old guniea pig[let]. We watched a ferret race. We all helped feed some lambs and kids their milk.


The kids bounced, slid, swung and played in the playground.




Meg spent a lot of her time power crawling, and the rest of the time here:


On the way out as walked round the last field, Freddie spotted a goat had got itself caught in the fence. He ran back to tell the manager. It took her a few minutes to free the goat, as it had got its head caught twice somehow.

Here is the goat, free and happy!

Our holiday in the forest

We went to Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest, with Rob's mum and dad. I didn't really know what to expect, and was totally bowled over by the location. It was beautiful!

Close to our cabin was a lake, a stream, a couple of waterfalls, and the place was teeming with wildlife. As soon as we arrived, a young swan called by to let us know we were expected to feed our neighbourhood wildfowl.

The swan was soon joined by an older swan pair, some ducks, moorhens and their chicks, rabbits and squirrels. It felt like we were in a Disney forest (tra la la la la!).

Pretty much as soon as we were settled, Rob took the big kids swimming. They loved it! The pool had a waterslide for young children, a boat rapids waterslide that is really fast and enormous fun, a wave machine, all sorts. They went swimming every day, mostly with Rob.

On Tuesday it was Gerry's 79th birthday. We went out for dinner, to Strada. Betsy ate nothing, had a bit of a meltdown and left early with Rob. Freddie ate gralic bread and some chips. I hope one day eating out gets easier.



Wednesday was busy busy busy. Mave and I went to the spa. Mave had a head and shoulder massage, and I had a manicure. Lovely.

We got back in time to see Rob have a falconry session. It was amazing. He handled 5 birds - a barn owl, a buzzard, a caracara, a kookaburra and a bird we can't remember


Freddie loved it too, and was fascinated by the whole thing. Afterwards he said it was much more excting than he thought it would be.



After that we played crazy golf. Freddie and Betsy raced around superfast. Mave and Gerry took it a little more seriously.


Next up was a mooch around the lake on a pedalo.



Then the kids played in the playground. There were swings:


climbing frames:
very exciting water engineering set-ups:
and icecream:

Meg spent her time getting round either on the front of my bike (shame on us for taking no photos of this, she loved it), or in a wrap. Granny got to push Meg a couple of times in the buggy too.

Thursday we missed a thunder storm as we were bowling.

We left on Friday afternoon, after a marathon swimming session for F and B and a toodle around the village for M.

We had a brilliant time. We'd taken lots of food so didn't spend too much in the expensive shop. The activities on offer were fab. We've booked for next year (very kindly paid for by my in laws) so I think we'll book activities slowly over the year to spread the cost. Can't wait!