woodland walk

The school holidays are almost over, I cant wait to get my tiny bit of freedom back. I know! I know! I shouldn't wish away these days but 6 weeks is such a long time to entertain a child on your own.

earlier in the week I made the most of the quiet, early start and made the boy some new crayons. He has a habit of breaking them into tiny pieces and making them unusable.

We started with these, all sorted into similar colours before putting in a medium oven for as long as it too to melt them. I kept checking through the glass so they didnt become a boring, murky puddle but would set with a a swirl of different colours

These are the finished crayon cakes. The boy has happily sat colouring with them since Friday and they are still in one piece!


With a final break in the weather we decided to go on a woodland foraging walk. Pulling on wellies, grabbing our baskets we took the 15 minute walk to the entrance of the woods. We're lucky to have several woodland trust woodlands within walking distance. We spent a good 3 hrs walking through the woods even trudged past the remains of farm boundries, picking up pine cones, hazelnuts and blackberries as we walked.

beautiful textures on a fallen tree. it was covered in bugs, woodlice, spiders even a beetle scurried over it.

roots growing through slate built farm boundries. The path we took was narrow with steep sides.

sloes before we gathered a pot full for homemade sloe gin and haws almost ready. we have a recipe for haw schnapps and haw ketchup we want to try out this year.

The last stop of the day before the long walk home, the boy sitting in the grass while I picked a few apples from the tree. This is a golden-ringed dragonfly and the first time the boy had seen one in the flesh. he was amazed and has the picture of him sat with it on his wall.

we returned to picking what few apples were left on the tree, its has been a particularly bad summer and this tree was laden with so much fruit 2 years ago its branches touched the ground. This year due to the wet weather most of the fruit had split and began to rot. a far cry from how lucky we've been in previous years. we gathered up a couple of kgs and made our way home.